From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishperistyleper‧i‧style /ˈperəstaɪl/ noun [countable] technical AATBBa row of pillars around an open space in a building, or the open space itself
Examples from the Corpus
peristyle• They have a narrow frontage to the street and are planned around an atrium and peristyle.• The interior spaces were divided by peristyles bearing classical statuary, while other statues stood in the round-arched window spaces.• These houses are laid out in terraces on the hillside with porticoes and colonnaded peristyles.• From the atria one passes into the first peristyle which has an Ionic colonnade and a central fountain.• A corridor from an exedra leads into the second, larger peristyle which had a gallery over the colonnade.• The rooms are all grouped around one or more peristyles.• The interior courtyard is not like an atrium or peristyle. 