Case study · New build · Cambridge

A courtyard house for a growing household.

Brief: four bedrooms, room for grandparents to stay for months, and a kitchen that could host forty. The answer wasn't a bigger box — it was a house wrapped around its own sheltered north court.

Floor area: 247 m²
Build duration: 11 months
Design focus: 6.8 star
Completed: 2025

The build

Sequence tells the story.

Month 1–2

Groundworks

Sand pad, retaining along the southern boundary, and services brought 60 metres up a right-of-way.

Month 3–4

Frame & roof

The courtyard geometry meant two rooflines meeting over a glazed link — set out in a day, checked for a week.

Month 5–8

Envelope & interior

Cedar screening, schist chimney, and an oak floor laid across the kitchen-dining spine without a single splice in the run.

Month 9–11

Landscape & handover

Courtyard planting, gate automation, and a handover that included a lesson in programming the lighting scenes.

Outcomes

What the owners say matters.

The courtyard gets used every day of the year. Wind comes from the south-west; the house blocks it. The court faces north; the sun pours in. Kids ride loops through the glazed link — the "wasted" corridor became the favourite room.

The utility room earns its floor area. Boot bench, dog shower, drying cupboard, and a pantry the size some homes give a bedroom.

A note on truth

This case study is a fictional demonstration by 188 Website Studio — the project, people and numbers are invented to show the depth a real case study page can carry.

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