My wife is Cypriot and we are looking to move over. Whilst here on holiday we have looked at housing options and more than likely will look to build a house rather than buy.

Most modern homes in Cyprus incorporate lots of glazing and concrete paved gardens with short fencing overlooked by neighbours.

A Riad style home with central courtyard with private enclosed pool and shading from trees with minimal exterior windows should help with the Cypriot climate?
Move seen retractable glass roofs available which would cover the courtyard in winter.

Question for any architects: would planning permission would be difficult for this type of property?

Thank you!

by BigAd8893

10 comments

  1. That is a really interesting idea. Certainly, the courtyard would be cooler. What about the pool temperatures? And direct sunlight.
    There must be some old houses or residences similar to this maybe in Nicosia ?

  3. The main problem for inner courtyard in Cyprus are fire regulations. You need 3 meters distance between walls and plot boundries, that means, that you loose about 45% of the plot area (best case) to those mandatory empty space.

    With a minimal thikness of the building of 6 meters, and 20 meter yard, you need 1400 sqm plot, which is more than two normal 640sqm plots combined. That’s a very expencive plot, and with 1400 sqm you can build multistories appartment building for at least 8 flats, so all land of such size is going to developers for flats.

    You need to be very rich to build such thing in Cyprus. I’d say, it’s x4 to the price of the ‘normal’ house of the same area.

  4. I have been to a couple of Π-shaped houses, one had a pool in the middle of the three sides! Definitely helped with the direct sunlight in the rooms and allowed the air to flow in from the open side! Not sure about restrictions for the proximity of the pool to the building, if all sides being closed as the photos above will cause other issues (air flow, humidity from the pool being trapped in the enclosed area etc) but it’s definitely an interesting idea!

  5. My Yaiyas house in old Aradipou had that shape, but much smaller and with a courtyard instead of a pool.

  6. Many traditional Cypriot houses with their main door directly on the street have inner courtyards. They don’t have pools obviously (they typically have a chicken coop and maybe a pen for other animals), but architecturally it’s very similar.

  7. Really useful comments thank you!

    Especially the requirements for distance between houses.

    I had seen some village houses with. Central courtyard which made me think about Riad design.

    I was thinking more of an L shaped house with one long wall to have plants against and one” wall” being extra tall double doors that could open to allow a car etc access.

  8. Look at how houses were build traditionally here. U or L shaped with walls and then a garden / yard. Shading helps with the heat. You can definitely reduce the electricity consumption of your air condition that way.

    And they are pretty.

  9. Very interested in this design too. My dad bought two semi-dettached houses back in the late 90s so tons of space. I want to demolish the houses and build something similar to this or at least shaped as a Π.

  10. There’s an architect in Nicosia that does a lot of work in the middle east and has adapted a bunch of the elements/aesthetics you’re talking about here. I have no affiliation with him and won’t offer my opinion whether i recommend him or not. But do have a look at his work:

    https://www.studiopetrosantoniou.com/

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