Outdoor Rooms
The biggest space savers are outdoor rooms. Properly designed, they’re cooler in summer and warmer in winter than other places outdoors and can be used on all but the most extreme days of the year, helping you to Live In Season if you're interested in all those health and finance benefits. In our South Beach years, I often worked outdoors in the Miami heat because my drawing table was located in breezes and arbor-shaded. And it did double duty, and is pictured above when it became a dining table in the evening. Who wouldn't enjoy working there?
An outdoor room that can be used most of the year is a bargain: serious living space at about 1/5 the cost of interior space. A house with outdoor rooms that are useful enough you can build 20% less interior space are essentially free because outdoor rooms cost only about 20% as much as interior space. Plus, you forever save the heating and cooling cost on the interior space you didn’t need to build.
Wanda and I are working on the Outdoor Room Design book, which we plan to publish soon. Here's the basic outline of the content:
Content Summary
The contents are constantly getting better with all the outdoor room ideas we learn and photograph, so this will keep improving until it hits the press. And most copies of the book will be printed conventionally, but we will also calibrate digital copies of the books to specific neighborhoods as desired to help more closely refine the designs.
Design Principles
Privacy
Outdoor Rooms
Home Design
The Edible Landscape
Water
Garden Room Character
Element Character
The Transect
Layout
South Facing Outdoors
Positive Outdoor Space
Parking Techniques
Parking Types
Hints From Houses
Room Proportions
Room Shapes
Room Types:
• Hearth Garden
• Dinner Garden
• Breakfast Terrace
• Kitchen Garden
• Couple's Garden
• Frontage Garden
• Meditation Garden
• Coffee Cove
• Children's Maze
• Orchard Run
• Motor Court/Sport Court
• Secret Garden
Borders & Passages
Borders:
• Fences
• Hedges
• Walls
• Arbors
• Buildings
• Porches
Passages:
• Paths
• Portals
Attachments
Structures:
• Guest Cottages
• Gazebos
• Tool Sheds
• Potting Sheds
• Green Sheds
• Cisterns
Water:
• Terraces & Troughs
• Rain Gardens
• Rain Streams
• Rain Pools
• Cool Dip
• Children's Grotto
• Fish Pond
• Frog Pond
Finishes:
• Finish Layout
• Flooring Materials
Fixtures:
• Fountains
• Fireplaces
• Lights
• Showers
Furnishings:
• Seating
• Tables
Plants:
• Trees
• Shrubs
• Perennials
• Annuals
• Grass
• Ground Cover
• Vines
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