[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":193},["ShallowReactive",2],{"article:courtyard-layout-feng-shui:en":3,"article-topic:garden-feng-shui:en":110,"related-articles:en:garden-feng-shui:courtyard-layout-feng-shui:":182},{"slug":4,"title":5,"description":6,"category":7,"topicSlug":8,"legacyPath":9,"authorId":10,"publishedAt":11,"updatedAt":11,"noindex":12,"summary":13,"sections":14,"references":75,"relatedTools":90,"seo":91,"contentImage":96},"courtyard-layout-feng-shui","Courtyard Layout: Enclosure, Paths, and Usable Area","A courtyard behaves according to the ratio of wall height to open width, not according to its outline. Measure that ratio first, then decide how much floor the path is allowed to spend and which low point takes the water.","Feng Shui","garden-feng-shui","","chen-jun","2026-10-27",false,"The height-to-width ratio decides whether a courtyard reads as a light well or a sheltered room. After that the path has to earn the floor it takes, the wet-weather route decides where paving goes, and one low point is chosen on purpose.",[15,20,25,50,55,60,65],{"heading":16,"body":17},"A courtyard is a ratio before it is a shape",[18,19],"Ask what shape a courtyard should be and you get a list of auspicious outlines. Ask how a courtyard feels and the answer is almost always a ratio: the height of the walls against the width of the open ground between them. A three-metre wall around a four-metre yard is a light well. The same wall around a twelve-metre yard is a sheltered room. Neither is a better shape; they are different rooms, and the ratio is what makes them one or the other.","This is why copying a layout from a photograph fails so reliably. The photograph shows the proportion, not the dimension, and proportion is the part that travels. Measure your own plot first: the narrowest width between walls, and the height of the tallest boundary. The ratio of those two numbers predicts how the space will behave more accurately than any plan drawn to scale.",{"heading":21,"body":22},"Enclosure, and the two failures",[23,24],"A courtyard can fail by being too enclosed or too open, and the failures look opposite while sharing a cause. Too enclosed — walls high relative to width — and the ground stays damp, the planting etiolates, and the space reads as a corridor. Too open — a low boundary around a wide yard — and wind strips the plants, the space offers no privacy, and it stops being used at all.","The practical correction is rarely to rebuild a wall. It is to change one variable: raise the effective height with planting or a pergola on the windward side, or widen the apparent floor by removing a dark surface and a heavy border. Both changes move the ratio without moving the boundary.",{"heading":26,"body":27,"table":28},"What symmetry costs","A path down the centre of a courtyard is the arrangement that reads as formal, and it is also the arrangement that spends the most floor on circulation. The table compares the two common options on the same twelve-metre-wide yard.",{"headers":29,"rows":34},[30,31,32,33],"Layout","Floor given to circulation","What it buys","What it costs",[35,40,45],[36,37,38,39],"Centred path, 1.2 m wide","About 14 m² of a 12 × 12 yard","A clear axis and a formal read","Two narrow beds; no space for a table",[41,42,43,44],"Offset path, 1.2 m wide","About 14 m², but pushed to one side","One large usable bed and a seating corner","The axis disappears; the gate view needs work",[46,47,48,49],"Perimeter path","About 20 m²","A continuous walk and a protected centre","The centre becomes an island nobody crosses",{"heading":51,"body":52},"The route the household actually walks",[53,54],"Formal layouts are drawn from the gate. Real layouts are drawn from the bin, the washing line, the bike, and the back door, and the two are rarely the same line. Before deciding where paving goes, spend a week noting the routes people take when it is raining and they are carrying something. Those are the routes that will appear as worn lines in the grass whether or not you pave them.","Then design for the wet, carrying version. A path that works when you are empty-handed and the weather is fine is a path that will be abandoned in favour of a shortcut across the bed. If the shortcut is genuinely shorter, pave the shortcut and move the bed.",{"heading":56,"body":57},"One low point, chosen on purpose",[58,59],"Every courtyard has a low point. The question is whether you chose it. Water collects where the ground is lowest, and if that place is beside the house, under the gate, or in the corner where the soil is heaviest, the result is a permanent damp patch and a planting failure that looks like bad luck.","Pick the low point deliberately — a planted soakaway, a gravel pit, a drain — and slope the paving toward it at about one to two percent. Then check it with a hose rather than a level: ponding after a ten-minute soak tells you more than a gradient calculation, because it accounts for the settlement your builder did not.",{"heading":61,"body":62},"The square, the long rectangle, and the L",[63,64],"Each outline produces one dominant problem, and knowing the problem in advance is most of the design. A square courtyard is stable and easy to furnish, but it gives no obvious place for a focal element; the fix is a single object — a tree, a pot, a bench — placed off-centre rather than a symmetrical arrangement of several.","A long rectangle reads as a processional space and wants a destination at the far end, otherwise the walk feels pointless. An L-shaped courtyard hides its own depth, which is an advantage for privacy and a problem for light: the inner corner is usually the darkest and dampest point on the plot, and it should be planted for shade rather than fought.",{"heading":66,"body":67,"bullets":68},"A layout test with string and chalk","The cheapest way to test a courtyard plan is to draw it full size on the ground and live with it for a week before anything is fixed.",[69,70,71,72,73,74],"Mark the wall line and the true width with string, then measure the height-to-width ratio.","Chalk the path at full width, including the swing of any gate.","Put a chair where you plan to sit and check what you look at.","Walk the wet-weather route with a full bucket and see whether the chalk path is the one you use.","Hose the paving for ten minutes and watch where the water stops.","Photograph the marked layout from the gate, the back door, and the far corner.",[76,84],{"id":77,"kind":78,"title":79,"detail":80,"publisher":81,"url":82,"accessedAt":83},"huangdiZhaijing","traditional","Huangdi Zhaijing (黄帝宅经)","Historical context for traditional residential orientation and spatial vocabulary. Modern recommendations are judged against real conditions.","Wikisource digital text","https:\u002F\u002Fzh.wikisource.org\u002Fwiki\u002F%E9%BB%83%E5%B8%9D%E5%AE%85%E7%B6%93","2026-07-14",{"id":85,"kind":78,"title":86,"detail":87,"publisher":81,"url":88,"accessedAt":89},"zhouliKaogongji","Rites of Zhou, “Winter Offices: Kao Gong Ji” (周禮·考工記)","The passage that assigns the five colours to directions, in the context of painting ceremonial banners and vehicles. A ritual and administrative code; it says nothing about treatment, mood, or rooms.","https:\u002F\u002Fzh.wikisource.org\u002Fwiki\u002F%E5%91%A8%E7%A6%AE\u002F%E5%86%AC%E5%AE%98%E8%80%83%E5%B7%A5%E8%A8%98","2026-10-25",[],{"title":92,"description":93,"path":94,"type":95},"Courtyard Layout: Enclosure, Paths, Usable Area","Plan a courtyard by enclosure ratio, circulation area, and one deliberate low point, then test the layout at full size before building.","\u002Farticles\u002Fcourtyard-layout-feng-shui","article",{"src":97,"srcByLocale":98,"alt":100,"width":101,"height":102,"altByLocale":103,"captionByLocale":106},"\u002Fimg\u002Farticles\u002Fcourtyard-layout-feng-shui.svg",{"tw":99},"\u002Fimg\u002Farticles\u002Fcourtyard-layout-feng-shui-tw.svg","Three courtyard path layouts compared on the same twelve-metre yard: floor given to circulation, what each buys, and what it costs.",1280,960,{"zh":104,"tw":105},"同一个十二米院子里三种园径排法的对比：交通占掉的面积、换到什么、代价是什么。","同一個十二米院子裡三種園徑排法的對比：交通佔掉的面積、換到什麼、代價是什麼。",{"en":107,"zh":108,"tw":109},"The height-to-width ratio decides whether the space reads as a light well or a room; the path then has to earn the floor it takes.","高宽比决定这个空间读起来是采光井还是房间；之后园径要挣得它占的那块地。","高寬比決定這個空間讀起來是採光井還是房間；之後園徑要掙得它佔的那塊地。",{"topic":111,"articles":149,"tools":181},{"slug":8,"title":112,"eyebrow":113,"description":114,"relatedTools":115,"articleIdeas":116,"seo":120,"sections":124},"Garden Feng Shui","Outdoor and landscape","Garden feng shui treated as a site problem: the boundary band next to the wall, tree distance and shade, water as a maintenance load, courtyard enclosure, and the sight line from the gate.",[],[117,118,5,119],"Garden Tree Placement: Distance, Roots, and Shade","Garden Water Features: Flow, Noise, and the Overflow Path","Garden Gates and Paths: Four Measurements Before Style",{"title":121,"description":122,"path":123},"Garden Feng Shui Guide","Garden and courtyard feng shui as a site problem: the boundary strip, tree distance and shade, water maintenance, enclosure, and the gate sight line.","\u002Ftopics\u002Fgarden-feng-shui",[125,128,131,134,137,140],{"heading":126,"body":127},"What an outdoor review can and cannot decide","Outdoors the constraints arrive in a different order. Indoors you usually rearrange objects inside a fixed shell; outside you are dealing with things that grow, move water, and load the ground. Roots lift paving, a canopy that fits this year will not fit in ten, and a low corner that holds water after one rain will hold it every rainy season afterwards. A traditional reading can tell you where a screen, a shelter, or a water body has usually been placed and why that placement felt settled. It cannot tell you whether a particular tree survives your winters or whether your soil drains. So the reading is the question and the site survey is the answer: the reading points at a place, and measurement decides what, if anything, goes there.",{"heading":129,"body":130},"Start with the strip that touches the wall","Begin with the first metre and a half of ground next to the building, because that strip decides more than the rest of the plot. Paving should fall away from the wall, never toward it; a fall of one to two percent across the width of the strip moves surface water without looking sloped. Check where the downpipes discharge, whether the damp course sits above soil level, and whether anything planted there will push roots into the footing or the drainage run. The classical preference for a sheltered back and an open front describes the same strip from the other side: planting on the windward side cuts winter heat loss, and an uncluttered front keeps light and access. Read the old rule as a wind-and-drainage instruction and it stops being decorative.",{"heading":132,"body":133},"Trees are a distance problem before a symbolism problem","Every tree question resolves into three measurements: mature canopy spread, mature root spread, and the length of the shadow the tree casts at midday in the season you care about. A tree whose canopy will eventually touch the wall is already too close on the day it is planted, because the bill arrives ten years later as blocked light, lifted paving, and a gutter full of leaves. As a working rule, keep the trunk at least half the mature canopy spread away from the wall, never less than three metres for a species that will exceed eight metres in height, and further still for shallow-rooted species or anything sitting over a drain. Only then choose the side: a deciduous tree on the sunny face gives shade in summer and lets light through in winter, while an evergreen in the same place gives permanent shade. Tradition hands a species a fortune; the site hands it a job. Where the two disagree, the job is the half you can check.",{"heading":135,"body":136},"Water is a maintenance problem before a direction problem","A water feature is a pump, a basin, a power supply, and a weekly task. Before direction, settle four numbers: how many litres the basin holds, how often the pump turns that volume over, how loud it is at one metre, and how many minutes a week the filter and the surface need. Standing water above roughly twenty degrees breeds mosquitoes in seven to ten days, so a feature switched off for a fortnight in summer is a nursery. The overflow path matters more than the outline: if the basin overflows toward the house, the water ends up back in the strip you just spent effort draining. The traditional caution about water running at the entrance is usually read as a fortune warning; physically it is a splash, erosion, and slip warning, and it holds up for those reasons.",{"heading":138,"body":139},"Paths and gates decide the sight line","A gate does two jobs: it passes the widest thing that ever needs to go through, and it frames what a visitor sees first. Measure the widest object — a wheelbarrow, a pram, a bin, a bike — and make the clear opening wider than that with the gate standing open. Then check the swing: a gate that opens inward across the path turns the first metre into a trap. Finally stand at the gate and look. Whatever you see first is what the garden is about; if the first thing is a bin store or a blank wall, the path is doing no work. A path running straight from gate to front door is the arrangement tradition comments on most often, and the physical version of that comment is that a straight run carries wind, water, and a direct view in a single line. Offsetting the run or interrupting it with planting costs a metre and answers all three.",{"heading":141,"body":142,"bullets":143},"Keep a record you can compare across seasons","Garden changes are slow, which makes them easy to misjudge. Fix four camera positions — the gate, the back door, the sunny corner, and the corner that stays wet — and photograph each one at the same hour in every season. Add a drainage note after the first heavy rain: where water stood, and for how long. Then change one thing per season and compare the same four frames.",[144,145,146,147,148],"Mark the four camera positions with a stake or a paving stone so the frame repeats.","Write the date and the hour on every photograph; changing light is the variable that fools you.","After heavy rain, walk the plot and mark standing water with a stick while it is still there.","Change one thing per season — one tree, one path, one drain — never three at once.","Keep the receipts and the plant labels; the record is what makes the next decision cheap.",[150,159,168,171],{"slug":151,"title":152,"description":153,"category":7,"topicSlug":8,"legacyPath":9,"authorId":10,"publishedAt":11,"updatedAt":11,"summary":154,"relatedTools":155,"seo":156},"garden-tree-placement-feng-shui","Garden Tree Placement: Distance, Roots, and the Shade You Get","A tree keeps growing after it is planted, so the position is decided at mature size: canopy spread, root spread, and the distance the trunk needs from the wall. The traditional reading is used as a list of positions worth checking.","Three numbers fix a tree position: mature canopy spread, mature root spread, and trunk-to-wall distance. Draw the canopy at full size on the ground before digging, then check the drainage run and the winter light on the wall.",[],{"title":117,"description":157,"path":158,"type":95},"Choose a garden tree position by mature canopy, root spread, and wall distance, then check the drains and the winter light before digging.","\u002Farticles\u002Fgarden-tree-placement-feng-shui",{"slug":160,"title":118,"description":161,"category":7,"topicSlug":8,"legacyPath":9,"authorId":10,"publishedAt":11,"updatedAt":11,"summary":162,"relatedTools":163,"seo":164},"garden-water-feature-feng-shui","A water feature is a pump, a basin, and a weekly job before it is a direction. Four figures — volume, turnover, noise at one metre, and minutes per week — decide whether it is still pleasant in year three.","Volume, turnover, noise, and weekly minutes are the four figures to settle before siting a water feature. Then run the overflow path away from the house, and keep the splash zone a metre clear of the threshold.",[],{"title":165,"description":166,"path":167,"type":95},"Garden Water Features: Flow, Noise, Overflow","Site a garden water feature by volume, turnover, noise, and maintenance time, with the overflow path kept away from the wall and the door.","\u002Farticles\u002Fgarden-water-feature-feng-shui",{"slug":4,"title":5,"description":6,"category":7,"topicSlug":8,"legacyPath":9,"authorId":10,"publishedAt":11,"updatedAt":11,"summary":13,"relatedTools":169,"seo":170},[],{"title":92,"description":93,"path":94,"type":95},{"slug":172,"title":119,"description":173,"category":7,"topicSlug":8,"legacyPath":9,"authorId":10,"publishedAt":11,"updatedAt":174,"summary":175,"relatedTools":176,"seo":177},"garden-gate-and-path-feng-shui","A gate is four measurements: the clear opening the widest load needs, the quarter circle the leaf sweeps, the 180 mm riser ceiling, and the angle the opening frames. Only the last is a design choice.","2026-11-02","The leaf sweeps a quarter disc of its own width, so a 1 m leaf needs 1 m of clear depth behind it. The code floor is 815 mm, the riser ceiling 180 mm, and a 1 m gate at 5 m frames 11.4 degrees of view.",[],{"title":178,"description":179,"path":180,"type":95},"Garden Gate Size: Opening, Swing, Threshold, Sight Line","Size a garden gate by clear opening, swing radius, riser height and sight-line angle, with the ADA figures and the arithmetic behind each one.","\u002Farticles\u002Fgarden-gate-and-path-feng-shui",[],{"articles":183},[184,187,190],{"slug":151,"title":152,"description":153,"category":7,"topicSlug":8,"legacyPath":9,"authorId":10,"publishedAt":11,"updatedAt":11,"summary":154,"relatedTools":185,"seo":186},[],{"title":117,"description":157,"path":158,"type":95},{"slug":160,"title":118,"description":161,"category":7,"topicSlug":8,"legacyPath":9,"authorId":10,"publishedAt":11,"updatedAt":11,"summary":162,"relatedTools":188,"seo":189},[],{"title":165,"description":166,"path":167,"type":95},{"slug":172,"title":119,"description":173,"category":7,"topicSlug":8,"legacyPath":9,"authorId":10,"publishedAt":11,"updatedAt":174,"summary":175,"relatedTools":191,"seo":192},[],{"title":178,"description":179,"path":180,"type":95},1793614153677]