Cool By Design
Jewelry designer Elizabeth Locke’s Virginia home is just as iconic and beautiful as her gorgeously designed jewels.
Change of Seasons
Sweater weather is winning the weather game – just when I thought our hot and humid days Richmond were going to last into October! I’ve been vacillating between t-shirts and sweatshirts!
Saying goodbye to summer is hard for me as I don’t mind the South’s hot and humid weather. As I’ve been meeting and collaborating with clients in their historic homes updated with 21st-century conveniences, I wonder how the original owners stayed comfortable before air conditioning?
Humans have handled the heat for thousands of years. It turns out our ancestors didn’t enjoy sweating any more than we do now! History is full of innovative solutions using cooling techniques that not only beat the heat but are also environmentally-friendly and energy-efficient. This might be one instance where history should be repeated!
For this blog post, the traveling designer is taking day-trips around Virginia to explore vintage passive cooling techniques!
Scientifically-Approved Cool
Hold on, what’s that phrase mean: “passive cooling”? To answer the question, we need to have a short science lesson (don’t panic, I promise it’ll be fun and there won’t be a test on this later!).
Ventilation is the name of the game when it comes to staying cool indoors.
Integral to the science of keeping cool is the notion that hot air rises. Think: hot air balloons!
There’s a lot of hot air going into this balloon! We took a pre-COVID trip (because that’s how we define our lives now: pre- and post-COVID!) to the Napa Valley that was highlighted with a hot-air powered balloon ride.
Ventilation 101
Of the three window ventilation types here, you’ll see that both cross-ventilation and single-sided ventilation often results in hot air becoming trapped in a space. This creates stuffy, uncomfortable rooms that send your fingers inching towards the A/C controls!
In contrast, stacking the ventilation and having additional openings close to the ceiling allows the rising hot air to escape overhead and leaves the cool air at floor level with its occupants! So here, we get back to our key phrase because this type of ventilation is called “passive cooling,” as it relies on the homeowner sitting passively and letting the well-designed architecture do its thing.
Science lesson over! Wasn’t that painless? Now, on with our tour!
Architecture Working For You
A crucial component to guaranteeing a home’s ventilation is its architecture and building site placement.
If you’re building or renovating a home, important considerations include the direction your home faces, the positioning of windows and porches, building materials, and roof lines.
Historically, architecture was driven by function: creating airflow, retaining heat, and protecting from the natural elements. Today, many new homes are designed taking pieces of architecture without any consideration of the original purpose. A perfect example of this are window shutters! One of my favorite t-shirts was purchased from McMansionHell (kind of says it all, doesn’t it?!).
Shutters were highly functional pieces of a home’s architecture --- used to protect from inclement weather, as well as, for privacy, and security. Start looking at the shutters on newer homes---are they the right size to potentially shut? Or are they small and out-of-scale?
Only us architecture geeks get this shirt! If you’ve ever looked at a house’s architecture and thought “something doesn’t quite look right” @kategwagner has probably nailed it on her IG page!
Virginia is chock-full of beautiful examples of historical architecture that took advantage of passive cooling techniques.
First Stop: the First President!
I’ve always admired the elegance of George Washington’s Mount Vernon home having grown up on what was once part of his estate! I was delighted to realize that the cupola at the center of the roof acts not only as a strong architectural feature, but is a textbook example of passive cooling via stack ventilation! The cupola’s windows send the rising hot air from the lower levels outdoors leaving the cooler air within the house.
Putting the “breeze” in “breezeway”
Not everyone in the colonial-era could afford installing fancy cupolas atop their homes, but folks still needed to find ways to coax breezes inside on sticky summer days. A common solution for single-family homes was to construct the foyer as a ‘breezeway’ at the center of the house, with the front door directly opposite the back door. Not only was this pleasing to the aesthetics of the time period (symmetry was all the rage!), it also created a passive cooling effect.
Mt. Vernon took advantage of the Potomac river’s breezes with its’ double front doors opening to a central passage running the length of the building. The generous size also made the Central Passage a central entertaining area where George and Martha could host the movers and shakers of colonial and early America.
On a very much smaller scale than Mt. Vernon is my foyer. In renovating our 1940s Richmond home, our architect, Charles Acquino, actually moved the staircase to the other side of the foyer so as to fully reveal the back door and create a natural breezeway. Trust me it works!
Plan It Out – Finding Your Cardinal Direction
If you had a large lot in the country like George Washington, you could determine which direction the prevailing winds come in. Windows can then be situated to catch the air (like the breezeway!), while also minimizing direct sunlight to avoid uncomfortable interior heating effects in the summer. South-facing windows get the most direct sunlight, and strategically placing them will not only keep the sun’s rays at bay in the summer but will catch sunshine on short winter days.
Additionally, building or renovating a home allows the homeowner to choose optimal siding. For example, brick is weather resistant, eco-friendly, and requires very little maintenance. Best of all, because bricks have a higher thermal mass (meaning they’re dense and store and retain heat), they offer a barrier between summer temperatures and the house’s interior coolness. Also, the inverse is true: bricks retain inside warmth and repel the winter chill!
Nothing says Historic Virginia than a brick estate in the country. Blue Ridge Farm was recently featured by the folks over at Virginia Living magazine. Photo by Calder Loth, Source
Windows into the past
I don’t know about you, but whenever I’ve had a home with double hung windows, I always opened the bottom half and didn’t think much about the top half of the window. By neglecting half the story of this ingenious window I missed the beauty of the design and it’s functionality as stack ventilation! Opening both the top and bottom of a sash window by equal amounts allows warm air at the top of the room to escape, thus drawing relatively cool air from outside into the room through the bottom opening.1
Returning to our historical tour for more solutions, I stumbled on this converted summer kitchen-turned-guest house (a part of a 1816 Georgian mansion estate outside of Charlottesville, Virginia) you can see a window cracked open just teensy bit. If you have a strong imagination, perhaps you can almost feel a breeze slipping through, cooling the sleeping space, which is precisely by design, of course! These windows were essential to life on a Southern estate, whether in a bedroom or kitchen. Opening at both the top and bottom made them easily adjustable letting in cool air below and hot air above. Very important if you were baking bread inside on an August afternoon!
Taking double-hung windows to the next level, we’re staying in Charlottesville as we travel only a short way up the road to visit Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello.
If you look closely at the left and right windows you can see the two window sashes that divide each oversized window into a third.
Thomas Jefferson’s home was a life-long obsession for him; he was constantly adding, renovating, demolishing, and rebuilding as he was inspired by modern innovations, travels, and his own imagination. Typical windows during Jefferson's era were small and let in little light. Jefferson designed large floor-to-ceiling triple-hung windows revealing the beauty of the Virginian countryside. Yes, you read that right: triple-hung.
Jefferson wasn’t content with double hung windows. He wanted to invoke the elegant and light-filled chateaus he fell in love with during his time as the ambassador to France, while also creating more seamless indoor-to-outdoor living. His solution was the triple-hung window, which opens to create a doorway — what we now call a “Jefferson window”.
Camping “Indoors”
Jefferson’s triple-hung windows allowed for easy movement to enjoy the shade on his Palladian-inspired porches, but he wasn’t alone in relying on porches to beat the heat. Porches became central to American life, but not just any porches; they were sleeping porches!
A sleeping porch is exactly what it says: a porch designed for sleeping. Imagine camping from the comforts of a screened-in porch (screen windows and doors first appeared in the early 19th-century but really took off after the American Civil War). During miserably hot summers in the Midwest and South (hello, Richmond, Virginia!), families would all camp out on sleeping porches to stay cool.
Sleeping porches were a welcome escape from tossing and turning in sweaty sheets all night, and also had the added benefit of providing “cleaner” air. Sleeping porches reached the height of their popularity in the 1920s, corresponding with the “sanitary revolution” when everyone was very concerned with germs and fighting tuberculosis. The clean night air kept everyone safe and cool! A hundred years later on the heels of a new pandemic, we are re-discovering the benefits of sleeping close to the outdoors.
The Museum District Bed and Breakfast in Richmond, Virginia offers the Judge Rhea Suite sleeping porch as one of the suites you can book for an escape into the history and culture of downtown Richmond. I love how the oranges in this room bring in the autumnal colors, further emphasizing the sleeping porch’s transition between indoor and outdoor living. Did you notice the double-hung windows all around this room? We know why they are there now!
indoor glamping
If you’re ready to get into the swing of designing a sleeping porch, why not add an actual swing? Reminiscent of the hammock of our childhoods, many designers are incorporating the ultra trendy (and let’s face it: ultra fun!) Charleston bed–or daybed swing into the modern sleeping porch. There is something about the feeling of weightlessness and the gentle sway that makes a hanging bed magical.
This Charleston bed from The Porch Swing are your childhood dreams befriending your adulthood aspirations: a huge, awesome swing where you can rest after a long day (maybe with a glass of red wine in hand?!)
The daybed from Polywood is great when you want to invite all of your friends over, or indulging in a “stay-”cation all by yourself; how does a midafternoon nap sound?
But all you really need is a screened-in porch and something to lie on!
Photo by Tria Giovan, styling by Laurie Kratochvil
I am so excited about the sleeping porch comeback! Spurred on by people wanting to spend more time outside after the pandemic lockdown as well as a push for more energy-efficient and eco-friendly ways of keeping cool, sleeping porches are a new-old solution for 21st century homeowners.
Working From the Outdoors In
You don’t need to rebuild your house or add a porch to incorporate passive cooling. Passive cooling can be achieved through smaller solutions: begin outside and work your way in!
"You know me, I think there ought to be a big old tree right there. And let's give him a friend. Everybody needs a friend."
― Bob Ross
This gorgeous brick estate in Montpelier Station, Virginia, has architecture and siting that take full advantage of passive cooling techniques: strategic plantings, brick siding, covered porches, and a central passage, and if you click through to the link, you’ll see those windows on the front porch are triple-hung Jefferson windows!
Planting trees on the south and west sides of your home reduces sun exposure and increases evapotranspiration (use that word in your next Scrabble game!). Basically, trees perspire too! They release water under their leaves, and much as with us it creates a cooling effect.(who knew?!).
It seems obvious that incorporating trees into your landscaping would offer relief from direct sunlight. Wide-bough canopies create shade for your home and help ease the air conditioning bill, but be careful to avoid “littering” trees. They can cause real headaches when leaves start dropping later this autumn. Spoiler alert: think twice about that beautiful glossy-leaf magnolia tree! Try out the silver maple, American Sycamore, tulip tree, or another deciduous tree that will give you canopy shade in the summer while also allowing the low-hanging sun’s light through the bare branches in the winter.
Check out the illustration below to get an idea of suggested placement of tree types around your yard.
Don’t sweat the details, I’ve got you covered!
Traditional ventilation techniques can be the answer to modern challenges–what’s old is new again! If you’re ready to go old-school, let’s get connected, get designing, and get smart about using nature to bring comfort and coolness into your home!
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