What happens to the suburban single-family home as cities become dense and privacy becomes limited? It must look inward. Through a series of thresholds from opaque to transparent, Yo-Ju Courtyard House, which means “secluded living” in Mandarin Chinese, embraces the future of suburban density by establishing a private experience despite being adjacent to a busy arterial street in the Clyde Hill neighborhood of Bellevue.
The brief called for three secondary bedrooms (two sharing an external bathroom and an ensuite one), and a master bedroom, completely independent of the others, served by another bathroom and in open relation with a space that could be used both as a private living room and a painting atelier.