One of the challenges of this long, narrow space was bringing in daylight and ensuring the space didn't feel claustrophobic.
Inspired by an image of the inner courtyard of the New York Met Cloisters, the design reinterprets the ideas at the roots of the architecture of abbeys. Built to shield from the outside world, spaces were instead organised around a common space in an inner world: the patio.
In my design, the stairwell becomes the inner garden, with light flooding from above thanks to skylights above the stairs and space for plants in a bed of pebbles. The living functions are organised around this open, multifunctional space.
