The Winter Garden
This post is a reconstruction of a July 30 post I accidentally deleted. It’s not exactly the same but I didn’t want this one to disappear as I’ll probably refer to it in the future..
The first time I heard the term winter garden it was about 2002 and with reference to the Falcon Wharf development in London’s Battersea where I was living at the time. The term referred to the enclosed balconies. Part of the development is now a hotel but at the time it was 100% residential. The winter gardens quickly became extensions of the living space and many different types of brightly colored storage cupboards and children’s play equipment could be seen from the road. This wouldn’t have happened if the balconies had been unenclosed.
If the balconies had remained unenclosed they probably would have ended up like the ones on Foster + Partners’ Albion Riverside development about two kilometers downriver. There, it seems like there are strict regulations regarding what can be placed on the balconies. Judging from photographs online, only neutral colored chairs, coffee tables and plant pots are permitted. In Australia, residential building management is carried out by something called the Body Corporate that has strict guidelines about what can and can’t be done on balconies. For example, laundry can’t be visible from the street so it’s unfortunate if your balcony balustrade is glass. In some developments an owner would not be permitted to place a grass screen behind that glass for that would be seen as changing the external appearance of the building and so, god forbid, lower property values.
In and around the Mediterranean, balconies are large enough to have a dining table that seats about eight persons and that dining table will be used for as many meals as possible. Awnings will shade it from the setting sun and heaters may extend its period of usage well into Fall. These balconies will never be enclosed because the feeling of being outside would be lost along with any cooling breezes. Having something picturesque to look at from one’s balcony is also part of their appeal to non-Mediterranean westerners even if not much balcony sitting actually takes place.
Houses of the wealthy may have had their colonnaded terraces to provide a sheltered place from which to admire the landscape as in the travel promotion images above but the balcony is a rather recent aspiration for less wealthy people to have for their dwellings. For a quick survey, I will refer to my trusty copy of Apartments and Domitories, an Architectural Record book from 1962. It’s a good record of what was going on in the years around 1960.
The shift to mainstream was slow, with the luxury 1951 development River Ledge Garden Apartments by Antonin Raymond (hello!) and L.L. Rado of Holsman, Holsman, Klekamp and Taylor Associated Architects having the balcony extending the full width of the living and dining areas of every apartment on what looks like a premium site. Lounging chairs and a table for four are indicated on the plans but these balconies don’t seem to be intended form extended durations of use.
There’s little about balconies that is logical. At first you might think balconies are impractical in climates that are oppressively cold or oppressively hot. Dubai apartments mostly have balconies but they’re usually for having a cigarette or for allowing guests to admire the view before quickly retreating inside. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Lake Shore Drive didn’t have balconies but they are in Chicago. But even so, there’s a chapter in Vladimir Paperny’s book Architecture in the Age of Stalin where he describes Stalin’s fascination with “warmth” as a desirable quality for Soviet architecture to aspire to. Architects duly obliged with Moscow and St. Petersburg buildings having balconies representing this warmth despite them being filled with snow for half the year.
It’s less easy to understand the non-inclusion of balconies in Henrique E. Mindlin’s 1956 proposal for Pernambuco Beach Development in Guarujá, a coastal town in Brazil not far from São Paulo and known for its many beaches. Plans show maid’s rooms, segregated access and all living and major bedrooms facing the view but the only balconies are the service balcony and the small balcony of the “studio bedroom” on the rear side of the building. It seems that in 1956 people were indifferent to balconies but it might be the case of there being less of a need for them in Brazil where it’s easy to imagine more life lived outdoors anyway.
Back in the US, is the balcony-less 1950 Fordham Apartments by Leonard Schultse and Associates. We would look at this typical floor layout with its recessed living areas and see an opportunity for balconies. In 1950, they can’t have been seen as a necessity for federal housing for a site in the Bronx and having a river on one side of the site. Internal kitchens have separate entrances that suggest domestic help, even if not live-in as with the Brazil example above.
Again in the US, the 1953 Garden Apartments for the St. Louis Housing Authority by John J. Cochran could have been designed without balconies but instead has them, and their location off the living area suggests that they are intended to be used as an extension of it. Or possibly of the kitchen, for the storage of mops, buckets and brooms. For whatever reason, balconies have entered the mainstream.
• • •
In the original version of this post of July 30, I wrote that I’d recently changed apartments. By the time you read this, I’ll have been in my new apartment about six weeks. One day about the middle of July, an agent showed me about eight apartments. Here’s one I was shown. What was a balcony in front of the living room and the main bedroom has been enclosed to make an internal space with a continuous floor surface, even though the doors opening onto this space have been retained. It is a winter garden. I didn’t like it.
Here’s another example of a balcony converted into internal space, this time retaining the door to the bedroom and widening the opening to the living room that now includes the balcony. Balconies such as these are used for the washing and drying of laundry and this example has some cupboards most likely concealing a laundry trough at one end, a washing machine at the other, and a retractable clothes line mounted on the ceiling.
I chose the apartment I did because it had a double balcony, unenclosed and facing south. My idea of a balcony is a place where I can put some plants, and sit at a table with a drink or a book. I want an alternate place to be. A place that’s not indoors. No winter garden for me.
There’s obviously something cultural at work here because most of my neighboring owners feel otherwise and have extended their internal living areas into the area of the balcony. Here’s a view of the work in progress for the living rooms of four apartments. The glass balustrade is removed and the new windows fitted. There must be some management requirement for the colour of those new window frames to be unified but the design of those frames can be anything. These three apartments in the photograph below are unusual in that the chosen frames and their positions are almost identical. In these photographs you can see the makeshift workbenches constructed on site as and when required.
A close look at these next two photographs show more variety of frames. In one instance, some double glazing panels have simply been fitted above the existing single layer of glass forming the balcony even though this doesn’t make sense thermally. Most households prefer full replacement and there are many variations and combinations of fixed glazing, sliding windows and casement windows. These many customizations make surprisingly little difference to the outer appearance of the building.
That’s not the case with older developments without rules regulating customization but even then, it doesn’t make as much difference as you think it might. In fact, I prefer my residential buildings to show signs of individuals inhabiting them however they want. Within reason of course.
This next development is almost complete. The front line of buildings closest to the road has winter gardens already provided to all apartments but those in the rows behind have only the potential for them.
Returning to this next photograph, it’s not just about enclosing the balcony as there are also internal modifications. The red ribbons in front of the balconies indicate that a unit is still for sale, although many owners leave them there for some time after occupancy. Of the 24 apartments in this photograph, eight of them have had no modification but six of them haven’t been sold yet. Only two of the 16 occupied units have unenclosed balconies. Of these altered units, the most common alteration is to extend the wall separating the second bedroom from the living room so that both rooms now have their own winter gardens. Sometimes, the wall extension separating the living room and bedroom is doglegged so the living room borrows area from the bedroom. It is also possible (though not shown in this photograph) for the living room to be extended to the maximum while the adjacent bedroom retain its balcony as an open balcony. Sometimes, the former external wall will be removed so both rooms are now longer and with full glazing. One popular variation is to enclose the full width of the balcony, retain the bedroom doors to the winter garden but remove the wall and doors from the living room side. This creates a living room with a flagpole extension that can still be used for the washing and drying of laundry.
The block in this next photograph is low rise to allow the taller blocks in the middle and east rows a southwards view along the river. The two uppermost apartments on the right and closet to the river have views across a river and along the larger river it joins and I suspect this is why their alterations have few frames. The apartment on the right has gone for a huge glazing panel with two small side windows for ventilation, while the apartment on the left has half the wall area as sliding windows revealing a glass Juliet balcony. In their own ways, both have gone for minimal intrusion and, interestingly, both have gone for maximum unobstructed area by removing the wall of the second bedroom to make the living room into a large L-shaped room with full glazing.
The fact the original balcony glazing meets the slab at the bottom and is conveniently a drop gap above makes me think that developers are facilitating such customization. That the majority of owners choose to carry it out immediately or even prior to occupancy suggests the management has set a post-occupancy window for customization work and thus avoid perpetual construction.
Postscript: I didn’t know it when I first wrote this post, but I can’t pretend I don’t know now. I asked a friend about the urgency with which these alterations were carried out. He explained that, when selling an apartment, enclosed space sells for double that of unenclosed space. This, the simplest possible explanation, also explains why many households enclose their balconies yet continue to use them for the washing and drying of laundry as they would have anyway. Of those twenty four households in the photo above, only one household that has placed plants and a table and chairs on their unenclosed balcony and is using their open balcony much as I do mine. The other households have taken advantage of the developer’s “gift” of space with the potential to add value upon resale.
• • •
Share this:
