Due to the geographical location and climatic conditions of Beijing, the best houses in Beijing are the north house facing south, followed by the west house facing east, the east house and the south house. It is poor and not an ideal living location. This is what the folk proverb of Beijingers, "if you have money, don't live in a southeast house, it will not be warm in winter and cool in summer".
1. First-entry courtyard
First-entry courtyard is also called a basic courtyard. It is a quadrangle or triple courtyard surrounded by houses on four or three sides. The characteristic of this kind of courtyard is that there is a main room (north room), which usually has three rooms, and there are one wing room on each side of the main room, with a maximum of five rooms. If the courtyard is narrow and only has the width of four rooms, half of the wing rooms can be placed on both sides of the three main rooms, forming a "four-break-five" pattern. On both sides of the south side of the main house are the east and west wing rooms, each with three rooms, arranged in a "pin" shape with the main house. Opposite the main room is the south room, also known as the inverted room, with the same number of rooms as the main room. A courtyard formed by houses surrounded by four sides is called a courtyard. If there is no south room, it is called a triple courtyard.
This kind of small house enters the courtyard, and the house door opens in the southeast direction. If it is a courtyard house, the gate is usually in the verandah style, occupying one or half of the room at the head of the house. After entering the door, you are faced with a mountain screen wall (screen wall) built on the south gable of the east wing. You can enter the courtyard through the screen door. If there is no inverted house in the south but only a courtyard wall, a wall-mounted door (also called a wall-mounted door or a small gatehouse) should be built in the southeast (Figure 2-7). This typical courtyard upon entering is the basic unit of Beijing courtyard.
2. Second-entry courtyard
The second-entry courtyard is formed by extending vertically on the basis of the first-entry courtyard. When a courtyard is expanded from the first courtyard to the second courtyard, a partition wall (also called a partition wall) is usually added between the south gables of the east and west wings to divide the courtyard into two parts: inside and outside. There are two doors at the closing point of the partition wall for entry and exit. The second courtyard is a small quadrangle with a generally small area. The width from east to west is only fifteen or six meters, and the depth from north to south is only twenty or thirty meters. This kind of small courtyard does not have a corridor, and the second door usually adopts the form of a screen door, which is both beautiful and economical. The building on the middle road of Yu Shuyan's former residence in Chunshu Shangtiao, Xuanwu District, Beijing is such a typical two-entry courtyard. However, since the courtyard is a house with one master and one side by side, the gate of the house is not opened at the southeast corner of the building on the middle road, but at the south end of the east road. The second door of the courtyard adopts the form of a hanging flower door with independent columns. Its function is the same as that of the screen door, but its form is much more sophisticated.
Among the quadrangle courtyards with two courtyards, there are also some that are larger in scale and have a more elaborate layout. Compared with the above-mentioned small two-entry courtyard, the main difference lies in the width of the area. For a relatively wide two-entry courtyard (about 22 meters wide and about 30 meters deep), the north room can be arranged with seven rooms, namely three main rooms and two side rooms on both sides, forming three main rooms and four ears. In this kind of courtyard, both the main room and the side rooms can be equipped with verandahs, and the verandahs are connected by hand verandas. If there is margin in the depth direction of the courtyard. You can also set up a wing room on the south side of the east and west wing rooms, and the barrier wall that separates the inner and outer courtyards is set on the south gable line of the wing room. The hand corridor is connected from the south side of the wing, and extends inside the smoke barrier wall to meet the second door. The second door adopts the form of a four-column hanging flower door and is connected to the verandahs on both sides. In this way, the main room, the verandahs of the wing rooms, the hand-painted veranda and the hanging flower door together form a circular passage in the inner courtyard. This is a traffic system that can avoid rain and snow.
3. Three-entry courtyard
The three-entry courtyard is formed based on the two-entry courtyard and then developed in depth. Generally, a row of hoods is added behind the main house, and a long and narrow backyard is formed between the back hoods and the main house. The backyard and the middle courtyard are communicated through the passage at the end of the main east wing. Residents can enter the backyard through this passage. This layout, with a row of back rooms behind the main house, is considered an ideal three-in-a-yard layout, and is known as a "typical" or "standard" courtyard house. In fact, there are many examples of this kind of three-entry courtyard, such as a house in Dongsisi Tiao and a house in Dacaochang all have such courtyards (Figure 2-9).
There is another pattern of three-entry courtyard, which is more common. It follows the pattern of a second courtyard, with an additional courtyard behind the main house. The third entrance courtyard also has the main room, side rooms, east and west wing rooms, hand-drawn corridors, etc. just like the middle courtyard. In this layout, there are two ways to communicate between the first, second and third courtyards. One is to make the bright room of the main room into a hall, so that people can enter the backyard from the middle; you can also open a passage on the side of the wing room. for passage. The courtyard house at No. 35 Qiansun Park Hutong, Xuanwu District has this pattern (Figure 2-9.4).
The quadrangle with three courtyards is a medium-sized residence and is already quite large.
4. Four-entry courtyard
The four-entry courtyard is a further extension of the three-entry courtyard along the depth direction. The general approach is to add a row of back rooms behind the third courtyard. But this kind of three-entry courtyard is not the one with a back room, but the kind with the same or similar layout of the second and three-entry courtyard (such as No. 35, Qiansun Park Hutong, Xuanwu District, mentioned above). The buildings on the central axis of the four-entry courtyard are, from south to north: reverse seat? First entrance? Weeping flower door? Second entrance? Main room or hall? Third entrance? Main room? Fourth entrance? Cover room.