One of our long term goals is to buy land and design a modernist house ourselves. We have friends who have started on that process as well; they have the land and he is doing architectural courses at night to make sure their design is sound. They have plans for it and they are awesome.

When we were in the Mayan Riviera we happily mixed our times between the beach and the resort's pool. Which raises the issue what makes for a good patio/pool experience? Our current house has a pool and patio area which we do not use much, which raises the issue, why don't we use it more?

What makes a good patio/pool area?

1. The pool is a good temperature to swim in.
2. The furniture is comfortable.
3. The patio area is pleasant and roomy.
4. The patio area is easily accessible with other areas like the kitchen (drinks, etc)

So we fail in many areas. The pool we have is a diving one with a 10 foot deep end. It means it is cold for most of the year, too cold to swim in. In Arizona it is 90F at the moment and the pool is still too cold to swim in. As a consequence there is little impetus to go out into the patio area. Pool warming systems are expensive but it would be one solution. In the future dream house though, the pool will not be so deep and be shallower so that it can be swum in more of the year.

The furniture we have on the patio is not comfortable. The resort had big, long, banana type chairs that were relaxing to read, lie, or sunbake in. They also had palapas everywhere so shade was never far away when needed. The pool area also had many tropical plants which gave good shade coverage when needed. We recently pulled down the pergolah area in the back yard, so there is little shelter at the moment. It will most likely get replaced with sails/shades.

Most patio areas on houses are an adjunct. The living room is usually dominant in house design and whatever remains from the house plan, the patio is then usually just tacked on. Architectural indifference as it was called in a talk I went to recently.

In outdoor cities like Phoenix the patio should be an integrated part of the house plan. We actually live in a small circle which makes much of the house unused and useless. We spend 90% of our time in the circle of the bedroom, kitchen and patio. We do not use the lounge room as the bedroom is large enough to have a couch in it, so most of our music, computer, reading, etc is done in the bedroom or kitchen.

Most of the rest of the house, such as the living room, lounge room, and front bedrooms are only used when we are entertaining, and being Arizona, a kick arse patio would be more useful in that situation. When we threw a party last winter we hired warmers, as a consequence nearly 2/3rds of those that came spent the entire time outside. So in reality the lounge room and living room can be shrunk to the point of being dropped if the patio is sufficiently strong that it can replace those living areas.

Finally, our current patio area enters the kitchen through a tiny door rather than through sliding doors or the back of the house being mainly glass with sliding doors. So it is inconvenient. At a resort of course bars are always near the pools so getting a drink is never an issue.

So our current patio doesn't get used that much because it fails in those areas. It is also why we used the resort pool area so much. In order to make the current outdoor area more usable we need to change the furniture, put in some shade, heat the pool up and landscape. Ouch, expensive.

For a dream-house I am of the opinion that the living room can be moved outside, which would cut down the size of the house required significantly. This also makes the patio an integral part of the design that needs to be harmoniously worked in with the pool and kitchen (and the main bedroom leading out to it). That will probably end up being a goal.