The natural consequence is a lower energy demand for thermal comfort, all as a part of an ‘indooroutdoor’ lifestyle.

There are two further interesting design issues for both types of outdoor rooms: their naming and their use as a driver of energy saving.

A curiosity that I have not seen remarked elsewhere is that internal rooms are named for their use (living room, bedroom, bathroom, study, etc); whilst outdoor rooms, by contrast, are described by their form or typology

(porch, loggia, veranda, balcony, terrace, deck, courtyard, arcade, stoop, etc). This seems true in English and the ‘Romance’ languages, deriving many of these words from ‘Vulgar Latin’.

The upshot is that outdoor rooms are seen as more flexible in their use than their quotidian internal counterparts. Which leads to the second point: sustainability.

The logic goes: if interior rooms are opened through doors to a veranda or courtyard it is likely that occupants will open them whenever the climate is pleasant, and with the doors open it is unlikely that occupants would try to condition the interiors, and they will adjust their clothing, lifestyle or expectations accordingly – a lower acceptable temperature in winter and vice versa in summer. The natural consequence is a lower energy demand for thermal comfort, all as a part of an ‘indooroutdoor’ lifestyle.

An evocation of the multiple uses, and thermal comfort / low energy outcomes in outdoor rooms are eloquently captured in Johnno,

David Malouf’s 1975 memoir of his early years in Brisbane after WWII, where he describes the dark interiors of his boyhood home:

“Such rooms were used only after dark. Daytime visitors were entertained on the front verandah among white cane chairs and potted ferns…. Here, on a cane lounge, my mother and other ladies took their afternoon nap, and here we were settled when we were sick, close enough to the street to the street to take an interest in the passing world of postmen, bakers, icemen and newspaper boys with their shrill whistles, but out of the sun. Here too on warm evenings, with a coil burning to keep off the mosquitoes, we sat after tea, while my father watered the lawn…. On very hot nights, when the family had gone inside to play bridge, I was allowed to come and sleep out on the front verandah – though it scared me to be so close to the garden, with just the cast-iron and Venetians between me and the dark.” (David Malouf, Johnno, UQ Press, 1975)

The question that we might now ask in our quest for more sustainability in home design is: can we capture this joy of life in a built form.

What is the relationship between sustainability and lifestyle, that all-too-ridiculed word so closely linked to sustainability?

What are the lessons from the shaping of past outdoor rooms in developing greener houses for the future? What would happen if we were to extend the idea of outdoor rooms further and what new forms would they take? Can we foresee possibilities of lower levels thermal comfort and greater enjoyment of the climate? Are the ‘al frescoes’ or ‘salas’ increasingly found in project homes a harbinger of real change, or just an advertising gimmick?

Critically it is the use of the space as much as its design. The form of the outdoor room may be of first importance to designers, but for residents it may have many uses, as David Malouf’s was, in the search for an enjoyable, non-air-conditioned, outdoor future.

Tone Wheeler is principal architect at Environa Studio, Adjunct Professor at UNSW and is President of the Australian Architecture Association.

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