Longer Days Call For More Time on These 9 Modern Porches
With summer just around the corner, we're daydreaming of warm afternoons spent lounging on the perfect modern porch.
Much like front doors, porches offer a first impression of a home. They extend the living and seating space outside, while providing a view of the landscape and easy access to the home's amenities. Take a look at these modern examples that show how seamlessly these spaces can transition between indoors and outdoors.
Sliding Open to Waterfront Views
Location: Paraparaumu, New Zealand
Local architect Gerald Parsonson and his wife Kate designed this beach home overlooking Kapiti Island. The family was set on creating a getaway that would fit in with the existing "baches" in the area—traditional modest waterfront dwellings—but that would have amenities to suit the modern needs of having three children. The sliding doors that lead to the porch allow them to extend their living space on warm days.
Fed up with flashy, environmentally insensitive beach homes, architect Gerald Parsonson and his wife, Kate, designed a humble hideaway nestled behind sand dunes along the New Zealand coastline. Crafted in the image of a modest Kiwi bach, their 1,670-square-foot retreat consists of a group of small buildings clad in black-stained pine weatherboards and fiber-cement sheets.
Photo: Matthew Williams
Double Porches Drift Into the Landscape
Location: Berrocal, Castilla y León, Spain
Josemaria Churtichaga and Cayetana de la Quadra-Salcedo share a Madrid-based architectural practice, but wanted to create a rural weekend home to enjoy with their children. They built this Segovia retreat with cantilevered decks that extend off both sides of the home to take full advantage of the stunning views.
"Segovia is a very central region, but an underdeveloped one," de la Quadra-Salcedo says. "Traditionally devoted to agriculture and mainly livestock, it flourished in the sixteenth century but now that the older generations are disappearing, there is a problem of abandoned villages and fields." The structure highlights the rural surroundings.
Photo: Fernando Guerra
Location: Austin, Texas
When designing this home for a couple with two children, Alterstudio Architecture worked to preserve the mature trees on-site by incorporating them into the porch. Cut-outs in the deck and a cantilevered roof bring the landscape into the home, and allowed the designers to avoid taking down a single tree during construction.
Another view of the deck.
Photo:
A Perfect Perch For Wine Tasting
Location: Paso Robles, California
The Brecon Estate Winery was given new life through Aidlin Darling Design's renovation. The efforts to strengthen the links between the tasting room, production facility, and surrounding landscape earned the project a Merit Design Award for Architecture at the 2016 San Francisco AIA Design Awards.
A remodel by Aidlin Darling Design at the Brecon Estate Winery in the Paso Robles wine-growing region of California has won a Merit Design Award for Architecture at the 2016 San Francisco AIA Design Awards.
Photo: Adam Rouse
Location: Quito, Ecuador
Ecuadorian architect Roberto Burneo designed this home for his niece and her family in the suburbs of Quito. A series of concrete-covered porches extend the living room, providing ample room for the owners to entertain guests.
Roberto Burneo designed this home for his eldest niece, her husband, and their three young children in a suburb outside Quito, the capital of Ecuador. The house is set on a flat expanse of land with fruit trees, and Burneo's design "guides the social areas inward in order to link them to the gardens."
Courtesy of Roberto Burneo
Switching Up a 100-Year-Old Switching Station
Location: Chicago, Illinois
Beaux Bo Properties divided this former switching station into condominiums, one of which was purchased and renovated by a local chef and her husband. The couple screened in the second-story porch overlooking the courtyard, creating a cozy retreat.
Upstairs, what Santos calls a "very, very raw" screen porch stood off the master bedroom; the couple enclosed it to accommodate a seating area overlooking an interior courtyard.
Location: Georgian Bay, Ontario
One large covered porch wraps around and between these joined cottages, linking them in the middle and providing a communal dining space for the two families who share the property. Designed by architects Melana Janzen and John McMinn, this double cottage offers a quiet escape from the city.
The large wraparound porch links the two main houses and two guest cabins, and is the site of many impromptu shared meals.
Photo: Lorne Bridgman
Location: Mornington Peninsula, Australia
Originally intended as a weekend family retreat, this cottage turned into the family's permanent home when they acquired the neighboring vineyard. Designed by Karen Alcock of MA Architects, the porch overlooks 16 acres of land.
Harper sits on the porch just off the entrance. James notes that the children spend their time "swimming in the dam, feeding the chickens, and riding their ponies or bikes. It’s really just the simple stuff that we had when we grew up in the late ’70s and ’80s."
Photo: Shannon McGrath
Location: Tunquen, Chile
Barbara Bernal designed this beach house for her mother, which survived a recent 8.8-magnitude earthquake. The home overlooks a 180-foot cliff on the Pacific Ocean, and the back east-facing deck allows visitors to take in the morning sun.
The Casa Cuatro sits above a 180-foot cliff that overlooks the Pacific Ocean. The locally quarried stone makes the house blend in with the landscape and acts as a thermal-mass wall, absorbing heat during the day and releasing it through the evening.
Photo: Cristóbal Palma
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