🏡 Relearn Home - Ten Truths from the Courtyard We’ve spent the past century designing for efficiency, convenience, and resale value — not for life. Our homes grew larger but emptier. Rooms multiplied, but meaning dissolved. Altira’s previously article the Unlearn City series showed how urban systems became too rigid, too top-down — forgetting the messiness that makes cities alive. Homes have suffered the same fate. They’ve become mechanical, predictable, over-programmed. To

Rethinking Our Approach to Urban Development 1. Planning as Control Old belief: Cities can be engineered like machines — predictable, ordered, complete. What to unlearn: Life is adaptive and messy. Rigid zoning and static master plans flatten the diversity that gives cities soul. New mindset: Plan for possibility, not perfection. Make space for local improvisation and gradual change. 2. The Car-Centric Paradigm Old belief: Roads equal progress. What to unlearn: Designing

Why a Design Charter? The design of housing and low-rise mixed-use buildings is filled with compromises. Budgets shift, priorities compete, and details can get lost. Without clear standards, design integrity can drift. The Charter exists to anchor us. It serves as a reminder of what we stand for, what every Altira home must embody, and what we refuse to compromise on. The Nine Pillars of the Altira Approach Courtyard as Core Every home breathes through a courtyard. It’s not