It’s been very hot. In some areas, it’s not just the heat, but also
This is the Oxley Homestead near Hay. This is hot country. The homestead sprawls with deep verandas, providing living areas where people can gather on hot days,
I grew up on the New England Tablelands, a cool area by Australian standards because of its height above sea level. Even then, both my parents’ and grandparents’ houses had extensive verandas.
Mind you, Armidale had a different problem, cold in winter. A weatherboard house with no insulation can be very cold indeed. Still, and it’s hard to believe now, I could sit on top of the bed and read with no heating. Mind you, that’s partly a matter of self-defense. The kerosene heater that I could have used smelt just so badly!
What you won’t see are the trees in the drive. They spread and provide a deeply shaded area that is quite wonderful on hot days.
Growing up, I valued those English trees. A little later, I couldn’t quite understand the native garden movement that said we must have Australian natives even if they were fire prone and provided less shade. Actually, I still don’t!
I am not sure who first invented the veranda. I have seen a passing suggestion from architect Peter Freeman that the first verandas may have come from British Indian designs in pattern books. Whoever they were, they deserve great praise!
Another of the nice features of some of the earlier Australian country designs was the courtyard. Here you had an area flanked by buildings, often a u shape, where verandas with chairs and grape vines or other climbers faced onto a central space with its own shade trees.
Let me finish this brief essay with an expression of prejudice. I accept that it is prejudice and stand to be corrected. To my mind, both customers and Australian architects since the Second World War and perhaps earlier have actually lost sight of the Australian climate. They build homes that you can’t live in without air conditioning. They also build homes – and here I blame customers not architects – that look inward where the role of the outdoor is limited to the required single entertainment space.
16 comments:
Been to Lanyon; it wouldn't fit on your average quarter acre plot. A cut down version might, but then you'd be sitting on your verandah, staring into your next door neighbour's back/front yard, and bathroom, and listening to the dulcet tones of the toilet flush, intermingled with their stupid dog barking at you.
You say homes "don't look out", but they developed from caves - the complete antithesis of looking out.
Personally I like my verandah, but then, my next door neighbour is half a km away and, after 10 years, I still can't remember his name - which I regard as a good thing. We nod at each other maybe once a month; that's about the right amount of human interaction, I think.
kvd
Actually, thinking about it more, when I moved to this valley I "did the right thing" by introducing myself to the neighbours, and then in the village shortly after, my wife and I bumped into Bob, so I made introductions, as you do.
"This is our neighbour Bob M". He replied "Robert, actually".
This is a guy who has won the Bathurst 500 (as it then was) and several other noisy things, but never reported as "Robert"; always "Bob". What to do?
Anyway, now he breeds pigeons, and they regularly travel to my home, and shit on the roof, and stomp up and down cooing. Not that I mind too much, except I am actually on tank water, so it's sort of unsettling to think of all that pigeon shit that I shower in.
Anyway, he's got a verandah as well, so I suppose that's sort of ok.
kvd
Have you seen Christopher Alexander's stuff? It is great.
People who lived in caves lived in the entrance - otherwise they could get trapped in there.
You made me smile, kvd. Actually, caves generally do look out!
Smaller blocks are an issue; Lanyon is hardly reproducible. Still, it does make me wonder.
I have done a fair bit of walking round Sydney suburbs looking at the patterns of life and architecture. Some homes are the kvd equivalent of the fort, a place you retire too so that you can (as best as is possible) ignore the external world.
That's fine, but my focus was on building houses that fitted with climate. If you want a fort, you can still do that.
However, now that you have raised the broader issue, desire for privacy etc, I have watched (I often pass multiple times) a remarkable number of places where you have a very nice if small shaded front veranda that must be the coolest place in the house sans air conditioning. With rare exceptions, no body ever sits there! So culture and habit entwines.
There is one rather wonderful house that I often pass, it's big, where they have an irregular L shaped veranda on the first floor overlooking the back garden. Its always used.
Evan, I think that you mentioned Christopher Alexander before. His stuff is interesting,but I couldn't get a proper feel for it from the on-line material.
No, it's hard to get a feel for it from photos
Good morning, Evan. You are up early! If I interpret his method correctly, you are going to get considerable variations depending on climate and culture, so one can't judge the whole work from selected examples.
Yes, that's true.
I was up early with a toothache. Got some more sleep and to the dr. soon.
Poor thing! Hope the visit goes okay.
Got to the dr. See the dentist tomorrow - one of the advantages of a small town like Hobart.
Lanyon: one of the last private properties resumed by the Peoples' Republic of Canberra, where private land ownership is banned. The fulfilment of a Georgist's dream!
I'll own up to last comment!
DG
I went through a similar trauma, Evan. Crikey dentists are expensive!It's no wonder people are having teeth pulled again.
Still, DG, they did end up extracting a reasonable price.
To paraphrase (that useful idiot) G B Shaw never confuse price with principle.
DG
I quite like GBS, DG, although some of his views are very strange! Still, that's not a bad aphorism.
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