Building Chinese-style "fortress" (house as wall, open area inside)

During my travels to China I noticed:
*Modern residental complexes have huge inner private gardens, I asked why: "So we can send our children out to play and bicycle, knowing they can't go outside, and bad people can't come inside.
*Even very old farm houses have big area inside, I asked why: "So they can work outside to peel their vegetables without having to worry that the vegetables are gone when they go for bathroom break".

Basically the buildings are built along a square, then they fit big gates on the only gaps, basically creating a big outdoors area for themselves which is protected by walls (the buildings become walls).

To enter, any would be burglars have to commit actual breaking and entering, rather than be able to just casually walk in on someones garden.

Also it means that they have a windprotected outdoors area.

I really like this style, it's astetic but also great for SHTF, would make it difficult for casual thiefs or moraders to know that you have a stacked garden inside, or whether you are even home.

There's a million pics of this online, but my surprise was that almost every building is like this, and it has carried through into modern housing as well:

Do you think it's a good idea to build like this in the west? Would it even be legal? I've heard that in many countries it's not legal to build anything that can be protected (i.e. you cannot put guard towers and walls up, but in many countries cannot even put a secure fence up)

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Building Chinese-style "fortress" (house as wall, open area inside)