The dominant element of the urban fabric of Simala's historic centre are the courtyard houses.
Like all the so-called “introverted” constructions of the rural architecture of Campidano, they have a single portal that opens onto the public street and marks the entrance to the residence.
The various portals along Via Trento were all built with the archivolt system.
Some are linear in their construction, others are more complex.
The crowns of a number of the arches display the date of construction and the client’s initials, sometimes with the use of more complex decorations or rudimentary inscriptions. The first portal displays 1928 as the year of construction and M. N., the initials of the owner, Nicolò Mascia.
They were almost always furnished with the traditional dovecote, access to which was possible by means of an external ladder.
The dovecote often displayed a string course and a special window, also bordered by square blocks of sandstone.
The dovecote and the portal have roofs of Sardinian tiles and reeds, sa cannizzada, formed of a framework of beams aligned with the maximum slope of the roof and bound reeds acting as a false ceiling.
Inside the courtyard, the residences had the classic loggia with arches, almost always supported by roughly-hewn quadrangular stone columns. At one end of the portico was the entrance to the kitchen, adjacent to various other rooms.
