Objectives and Background: Contemporary housing in Iraq, shaped by decades of war, political instability, and social transformation, is currently confronted with a crisis of identity loss and functional inadequacy. Unlike the country’s vernacular housing, contemporary housing has become increasingly detached from its environmental, cultural, and social contexts and often fails to respond adequately to the physical and psychosocial needs of its inhabitants. Despite the significance of Iraq’s vernacular architectural heritage, previous studies have primarily focused on the physical characteristics of vernacular courtyard houses or examined environmental and social factors separately, paying limited attention to the combined role of these factors in shaping different vernacular housing types. Accordingly, this study addresses the following question: How has the interaction of these factors shaped different courtyard-house typologies in Mosul, Baghdad, and Najaf? To answer this question, the study investigates the formation of courtyard-house architecture within a unified analytical framework.
Materials and Methods: This study adopts a qualitative, historical–interpretive research approach. Data were collected through archival and library research, historical documents, architectural sources, and field surveys of vernacular courtyard houses in Mosul, Baghdad, and Najaf. A comparative analysis was then conducted to examine the influence of climatic-geographical and socio-cultural factors on the spatial organization and architectural structure of these houses and to explain how the interaction of these factors contributed to the formation of different vernacular housing typologies.
Results and Conclusion: The findings indicate that courtyard-house architecture across the three case-study cities, conceived as a text, is shaped by the interaction between intratextual and extratextual factors. Among the extratextual factors, climatic-geographical and socio-cultural conditions exerted the greatest influence on the formation of vernacular housing. Although the examined houses share common architectural principles, differences in the relative significance and priority of these factors resulted in distinct architectural typologies and systems of meaning in each city. From this perspective, the courtyard house should be understood not merely as a physical structure but as a socio-cultural construct that embodies identity and meaning. Consequently, reinterpreting the embedded knowledge of vernacular courtyard-house architecture and consciously incorporating its climatic-geographical and socio-cultural principles into contemporary housing design can enhance contextual responsiveness while promoting the functionality, identity, and sustainability of contemporary housing in Iraq.