03 · Living outside
Outdoor
The best room in a warm-climate house has no ceiling. Terraces, shade, water, fire and gardens that survive August without a hose.
Terrace
The Outdoor Room, Properly Built
A terrace is not a paved area. It is a room that happens to have no ceiling, and it fails for the same reasons rooms do.
5 further pieces
Pools That Look Like Water, Not Tile
The colour of a pool is decided by four things, and the tile you spend three weeks choosing is only one of them.
Fire, Placed Correctly
An outdoor fire extends the usable year by two months. Put it in the wrong place and it extends it by nothing at all.
The Mediterranean Garden Without a Lawn
The lawn is a northern European habit exported to places that cannot support it. What replaces it is more interesting and needs a tenth of the water.
Shade Is a Material
In a hot climate, shade is not a comfort feature. It is the structure that decides which parts of your plot exist between May and September.
Outdoor Kitchens Beyond the Grill
Most outdoor kitchens are a barbecue with cupboards. The ones that get used every day are planned like kitchens and drained like bathrooms.
From the Index
Outdoor
elements.
The pieces of a house that belong to this section, with the dimension that decides whether each one works.
Return wall on a terrace
Costs the price of a sofa and adds six weeks to each end of the outdoor season. Perpendicular to the prevailing wind.
Sunken seating
Puts a seated head below the airflow. Looks like a style decision, is a wind decision.
Fixed masonry hearth
The wall shelters the flame, the mass radiates for hours after the fire dies, and the shelf beside it turns fire into equipment.
Vine-covered pergola
Cools by transpiration as well as shade, four to six degrees under dense foliage. Slats alone give you stripes at lunch.
Pale limestone paving
Stays comfortable barefoot in full sun where dark porcelain reaches sixty degrees at the hour you want to swim.
Deck-level pool edge
Three per cent of the pool budget, and the difference between water sitting in the landscape and a swimming facility.
