“I cannot separate it [watching the world go by] from the porch where it occurs. The action and the space are indivisible. The action is supported by this kind of space. The space supports this kind of action. The two form a unit, a pattern of events in space.”
Christopher Alexander, The Timeless Way of Building

Visiting my children in Toronto the past week I once again spent happy hours sitting on their porch. It’s a lovely place to have my morning coffee, a lovely place to converse, a lovely place to wait for the grands bursting up the walk after school. It has a roof, room for several chairs and a low table, and is tucked behind a railing with flower boxes and further sheltered behind a front yard tree. Nevertheless, I can see, at angles, the sidewalk and street and feel a part of the world while set away from it too.

The balcony in my Tsawwassen apartment poses more of a challenge for this effect than the Toronto porch. I live in a congenial complex of apartment buildings in which, as such buildings usually do, each apartment has a balcony. Mine faces south and is a great place for winter light and for greenery in summer. Many of the balconies in the complex are attractive with flowers and patio chairs and so on. Something I’ve noticed, though, is that I very rarely see people in those chairs on their balconies. I don’t actually spend much summer time on mine either until I create a bit of a cozy shaded corner where I can feel part of the outside world but still be somewhat secluded and private. 

Back in the early 1990s, a friend introduced me to A Pattern Language by architect Christopher Alexander, quoted above. This book was a bible to me in understanding how space works — what, that is, makes us enjoy one space and not another. Pattern # 167 discusses balconies. “Balconies and porches which are less than six feet deep are hardly ever used,” he wrote. Less than six feet, there’s not adequate room to group chairs; they have to be in a row. People on balconies also need a sense of being recessed; a cantilevered balcony feels unsafe, if only psychologically.

My balcony is five feet wide. The railing panels, furthermore, are a glass-like material, good for light and viewing from within the apartment but offering too much exposure for any length outside. There’s nothing I can do about the width, but I’m lucky in that the balcony is covered and part of it is recessed a little, and using that, I can fashion a nook where I can come out with my morning coffee, hear the sounds, see the sights, feel the air of the emerging day, and do this almost hidden from street view. This year I have an Engelmann ivy which I will train to cover part of the adjoining balcony panel, and other plants for beauty and partial barrier. When I have a guest, as I did yesterday, we can turn our chairs to face one another alongside the flowers. I’m pleased with how this year’s cozy corner is shaping up. If you visit, we’ll sit there together!

Do you have a porch or balcony? Do you use it?