We return to every completed project twelve months after occupancy to measure how it’s actually being used against how it was designed to be used. The findings are humbling more often than they’re validating.
At Harrow Terrace, we designed the smallest of the three courtyards as a quiet, densely planted retreat space. The twelve-month visit found it was almost never used — residents preferred the open lawn courtyard for nearly everything, including quiet reading, which we’d assumed would gravitate to the planted space.
That single finding changed how we approach courtyard hierarchy on every residential project since.