Private outdoor space for apartment dwellers became more coveted during the pandemic. There’s more variety in balcony types than the typical US or UK real estate listing would suggest. 

By Feargus O'Sullivan, he is a writer for CityLab in London, focused on European infrastructure, design and urban governance.

Among the many lasting effects of pandemic-era lock-downs for apartment dwellers is an expanded appreciation for balconies. While these private outdoor spaces may have once been a nice-to-have, they are becoming a required feature for an increasing number of buyers and renters. A UK survey from June 2020 found that, just four months into the pandemic, 14% of British home-hunters felt that the experience of lock-down had made having a balcony more important.

In some places, planning guidelines are even changing to reflect how much they can improve a home. Since 2020, guidance from the London Mayor’s office has recommended a minimum of 5 square meters (54 square feet) of outside space for every one- or two-bedroom apartment, with an extra square meter added for every extra bedroom beyond that.

In the absence of such explicit guidelines, the term “balcony” can indicate a broad array of outdoor space types — so broad, in fact that the term alone can only vaguely express what you’re actually getting. If you search online for homes listed as having balconies in the average British or American city, you’re quite likely to find included in that category both homes with lush, spacious outdoor terraces big enough to host a party on, and ones with narrow little ledges with a few dying geraniums and barely enough space to fit a cat litter tray (not that many people would trust their cat on a balcony).

In some countries such as Germany and Italy, where urban apartment dwelling has been largely the rule across classes for centuries, there is a wider range of terminology in everyday use, expressing the variety of uses for these outdoor spaces — depending on climate, need and circumstance.

When most people think of a balcony, it’s probably one of these: a projecting platform enclosed to above-waist height by walls or railings. If you’re hankering for a little sunny open space, then sun balconies are probably the brightest, simplest way of providing it.

But once a building goes above, say, five or six floors, sun balconies can start to induce vertigo. The degree of privacy they offer also impacts how much they are used. Look up at a building where sun balconies are ringed by railings or balustrades rather than a solid wall or opaque glass, and you’ll typically see that many residents have part-blocked their balcony from view, sometimes with a fringe of bamboo screening.

If balconies were belly buttons, then one constructed loggia-style would be an “innie” when compared to an “outie” sun balcony. Recessed into the façade rather than jutting out of a building, a loggia-style balcony is essentially a sort of room where a wall has been removed to expose the space to the open air.

These semi-sheltered spaces have some obvious advantages. On the upper floors of taller buildings, loggias are less likely make you feel exposed and dizzy and can shelter you from vertical (if not diagonal) rainfall. They can also feel more like natural extensions of apartments. At the same time, they can prevent some light entering the main body of an apartment that a sun balcony would not obstruct. They are also not necessarily a great favorite of developers, because they occupy potentially valuable interior floor space.

Street-facing loggia-style balconies are a staple of older tenement buildings in Berlin and other German cities, where the term “loggia,” which once meant a covered, colonnaded gallery, came to refer to these balconies. They are relatively rare in the US but do feature in some taller American buildings, such as New York’s Skidmore, Owings & Merrill-designed Park Loggia, as more secure, less gusty alternatives to the sun balcony. Chris Cooper, Design Partner at SOM, notes that loggias are satisfying “in-between spaces” that straddle the divide between inside and out. “It feels like a room, but one that has outside air, where you can grow plants on because there’s enough sunlight so you feel both at home and that you’re in a natural outdoor setting.”

People living in cooler climes where light is at a premium tend to think of balconies as places to catch a little sun and air without leaving home. In many places where heat can be punishing, however, balconies are designed to allow people to enjoy a cooling breeze while catching as little sun as possible. Balconies in India, for example, were traditionally screened by an elaborate perforated latticework known as a jali. In the Middle East, a similarly elegant intricate screen is known as a mashrabiya. With climate change, they are also making something of a comeback. While you might not find the sort of intricate screen traditional in the Middle East, it’s becoming increasingly common in places such as Australia to hedge in a balcony with some louvers, especially if the balcony is on a busy street where users might otherwise feel overly exposed to passers-by.