PLEA 2003 - The 20 th Conference on Passive and Low Energy Architecture, Santiago – CHILE, 9 - 12 November 2003 Paper Code PL01-«ID» Page 1 of 4 VERANDAHS and SELF-BUILT HOUSES: the Case of Campinas, Brazil Doris C.C.K. Kowaltowski, Vanessa Watrin, Danielle Skubs and Silvia A. Mikami G. Pina Department of Architecture and Building, School of Civil Engineering, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, UNICAMP, Caixa Postal 6021, 13083-970 Campinas, SP, Brazil, phone: +55 019 37882390, Email: doris@fec.unicamp.br ABSTRACT: This paper presents the results of an investigation on verandahs and self-built houses. The investigation is part of a continuing investigation on the self-built housing phenomenon in the region of Campinas, Brazil. In this study the verandah is singled out as a significant building element to attain environmental comfort. A field study, in five outlying areas of the city of Campinas, applied 76 questionnaires to families of self-built houses. A second study analyzed 64 floor plans of self-built houses, drawn from a previous investigation. Results show that the front verandah is less and less popular, but the back porch is still an important element for clothes washing and drying activities. The population recognizes the verandah’s importance as a shading element, but self-builders today seldom incorporate this knowledge into the house design. Conference Topic: Traditional Architecture Keywords: Verandahs, Environmental Comfort, Self-built House 1. INTRODUCTION This paper presents the results of an investigation on verandahs and self-built houses. The investigation is part of a continuing investigation on the self-built housing phenomenon in the region of Campinas, Brazil. In this study the verandah is singled out as a significant building element to attain environmental comfort. The verandah can be shown to be a fairly constant element in the historical development of the Brazilian house. Verandahs provide transition from public to private spaces and shield the house from sun and rain. Thus the terrace or verandah improves thermal comfort of the house in hot and humid climates, predominant in Brazil. The verandah also provides shaded, useful space for a number of domestic activities. Verandahs integrate the house with its garden and can allow shielded observation of the street without ostensive involvement. Recently the verandah has been more and more incorporated into the indoor space of dwellings and its use for family activities has diminished. The importance given to the traditional transition space is thus an objective of study and two distinct investigations were undertaken. 2. A BACKGROUND ON THE VERANDAH The verandah can be called a house extension to the outdoors. Verandahs or porches are useful accommodation spaces in overheated climates. In the history of architecture they appear in descriptions of indigenous buildings discovered by Columbus [1], but must have been part of vernacular architecture in many parts of the world. The loggia of Italian renaissance palaces is an important form of indoor-outdoor articulation, through an open colonnade [2]. In the traditional Japanese house the verandahs or engawa is an important outdoor-indoor transition space, marked by the wooden flooring in contrast to the mats of the indoor rooms [3]. The relation to the garden is an important feature of the Japanese verandah, highlighted by stone steps leading up to the terrace or verandah. In more recent western architecture the porch becomes prominent in the eighteenth century, especially as an English military addition to houses located in India and the Caribbean [4]. The designed outdoor domestic space appears in the nineteenth century in the North American house and is identified as an application of openness and a factor of comfort. Insect screening of the porch becomes a popular feature of the house in southern parts of the United States. This detail is important in hot and humid climates especially for evening use or even for outdoor sleeping. In most parts of the world, however, the verandah is not screened and probably only used in favorable conditions [1]. In Brazil the verandah appears early in colonial times, as part of the rural house (fig. 1). The origin of the Brazilian colonial urban house is the medieval Portuguese urban house, which did not have generous verandahs. The Brazilian urban counterpart may have a narrow terrace on the second floor to observe the street. This terrace may feature “muxarabis”, the wooden privacy screens imported through the Iberian Peninsula from Arabic