Think about the Separation of House and Garage

Invite your family and guests to physically and mentally separate themselves from car places to people places by separating the buildings and parking areas.  This allows people to mentally shift away from automotive and into human activity and provides a clean and quiet movement between street, parking and home.

The architect/designer provides a canvas for the owners to paint their dreams and display their personalities through furnishings, plantings, light and shade and the many elements that make a house a home.  Being mindful of Pattern Two - Creating Rooms, Inside and Out - by extending that canvas to the land or lot upon which a home is placed shifts a property from good architecture and design into a great home. Good architecture and design is enhanced when outdoor spaces are designed along with the indoor spaces. 

Without the outdoor rooms, even a good house lacks essential elements of "home".

The Pleasure of Positive Outdoor Space

"Positive spaces in and around buildings can be thought of as areas that have enough definition - from walls, fences, steps, trees, edges of all kinds - to be seen and experienced as coherent, nameable places.  Negative spaces are those fragments of space that are often leftover around and between the positive spaces.  Negative space is background space, rarely named in ordinary conversation.

Homes are often thought of as positive elements, and the space they occupy merely the negative emptiness into which they are placed.  Houses designed with this attitude are like cakes on a platter, with empty space all around them.  But outdoor space can be as positive as the building itself.

The thinking behind this pattern is that people feel more comfortable in the outdoors around their homes when that space is positive.  Positive spaces tend, therefore, to be used more than negative ones and so are more likely to be developed and improved.  Negative outdoor space tends to be unused and avoided."

We have often discussed with our clients the importance of building orientation in regard to the development of "positive" outdoor spaces, especially in light of the effects of the sun and wind in our Midwest climate.  The south side of our Midwest homes is particularly important from a solar gain standpoint, but also offers up a warm and welcoming outdoor space during the spring, fall and even the winter months.  The warming effects of the sun enrich our spirits as winter turns to spring and when hot summer gives way to cool autumn temperatures.  During winter, in addition to the benefits of solar gain on the inside of your home, a full-face to the south allows you to go outside, even if for a short spit of time, to soak up some sun and Vitamin D.

It's for this reason that we advise against putting a permanent roof of any sort over an outside space on the south side of your home.  You'll lose all the seasonal benefits for short-term gain of summertime shade.  Find shade in other areas of your property and allow the south side to serve you in three seasons.  For those hot summer months, we look to the north or east sides for outdoor living.   We use the house as shelter from the sun and wind by creating outdoor living spaces that communicate directly with the indoor spaces.  A screen porch, for instance, is ideally placed on the north or east sides of a home, preferably off of the kitchen and/or family room to expand your territory in good weather.   Placing a screen porch to the east allows you to gain maximum use as it will provide early morning sunshine, afternoon shade and breezes, and late afternoon shade and coolness.  To the north, your screen porch will be cool and breezy during the summer months when you'll need it, and provide a windbreak and insulation to the house from cold north winds in the winter.

The best house design projects are those that incorporate the house into the site with a natural flow between indoor and outdoor rooms. Terraces off of dining and living areas, balconies/upper decks off of master bedrooms, and screened porches off of the kitchen are examples of outdoor rooms that speak directly to the indoor rooms and therefore become "positive", active, useful spaces that will be lived in and appreciated.

The best outdoor spaces are those that are sheltered from the wind by the "L" spaces created by the house, enclosing activities through the development of walls, fences and openings.  Such design creates an intimacy, and a connection between the house, the outdoors, and the people, and again, become positive, lively elements, rather than dark, cold, uninhabitable negative spaces.

I am reminded of the "Music on Chicago" series that takes place in a two-block area of our historic downtown.  The main reason it feels so good, and works so well, is the intimacy that's created by the two-story walls on either side of the street which monthly becomes the venue for a lively street dance and gathering place.  It's sheltered from the wind, and as the day turns to dusk, from the hot summer sun as it sets just beyond the downtown buildings.  It is a space that works because it has a "human scale" and becomes a "positive" space anchored by walls and fences, stage and of course, people!