Your own space
Map your place
Four things — the town, which way it faces, how big it is and what goes wrong — and it can already say when the sun leaves.
Start mappingOutside, Actually. · a Room for Drama instrument
The outside of a home has operating hours.
When a patio, balcony or garden actually works, why it stops, and the smallest change that buys the hours back, worked out from a model of the place rather than a rating.
4:00 PM — sun 49° up, straight on the table. What it feels like is what closed it.
The west patio that cooks at five, July. The same engine as every other page.
A day at the demonstration property, hour by hour. 3:00 PM: unanswered. 6:00 PM: no. 9:00 PM: tight.
17readings taken at a point
16uses it answers for
40changes it can test
No accountprojects are stored on this device
Three ways in
A thing you want to do
What are you trying to do?
Each one opens a mapped place where it works, with its year already read.
Before you buy anything
Learn what to look for
What to measure first, where people get fooled, and every change laid out before you buy the object.
A year, read like a shop’s hours
Open this place- Works
- Tight
- No
- Unanswered
Rings run from 4 am at the centre to noon at the edge.
The porch chair is open for morning coffee 7:00 AM to 10:00 AM, May to September. It opens at different hours October. Shut November to April.
- November to April: shut for morning coffee. What it feels like is what stops it.
- May to September: open 7:00 AM to 10:00 AM. It carries on past 10:00 AM, which is later than most people do this.
- October: open 9:00 AM to 10:00 AM. It carries on past 10:00 AM, which is later than most people do this.
The shut months are shut for one reason: what it feels like. That is the thing to change if you want the season longer, and it is a different job from making the open months better.
The same year as a table
| Month | Open | Usable hours | What decides it |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | shut | — | What it feels like stops it |
| February | shut | — | What it feels like stops it |
| March | shut | — | What it feels like stops it |
| April | shut | — | What it feels like stops it |
| May | 7:00 AM–10:00 AM | 3 h | Still usable afterwards |
| June | 6:00 AM–10:00 AM | 4 h | Still usable afterwards |
| July | 6:00 AM–10:00 AM | 4 h | Still usable afterwards |
| August | 6:00 AM–10:00 AM | 4 h | Still usable afterwards |
| September | 6:00 AM–10:00 AM | 4 h | Still usable afterwards |
| October | 9:00 AM–10:00 AM | 1 h | Still usable afterwards |
| November | shut | — | What it feels like stops it |
| December | shut | — | What it feels like stops it |
Open a place from a file
A place you exported from this or another device, or one somebody sent you. It is read and brought up to the current format on the way in.
Places that behave differently on purpose
These are the reference properties the engine is tested against. Each one is a real problem shape, and each one gets a different answer.
The west patio that cooks at five
“It is beautiful until about half past four and then nobody can sit there.”
The north-facing city garden
“Everything I plant back here dies and I do not know why.”
The balcony nobody uses
“It looks great and the wind makes it useless nine days out of ten.”
The courtyard that never dries
“The cushions are wet from October to April and the paving is green.”
The deck that eats furniture
“Everything I put out there fades, warps or goes mouldy within two summers.”
The balcony that is only good before nine
“It is lovely with coffee and useless by lunchtime, and I do not know what to do with it.”
The patio the neighbour's window sets on fire
“Around six there is a stripe of light across the table that is genuinely painful.”
The pool surround nobody can cross barefoot
“The children run from the door to the water and yelp the whole way.”
The front porch nobody sits on
“We built it to sit on and we wave at people instead of talking to each other.”
The roof terrace with nothing to hide behind
“There is a wonderful view and we last about twenty minutes up there.”
The side return that gets four feet of sky
“It is the closest bit of outside to the kitchen and I have killed everything I have put in it.”
The hot tub that feels like a stage
“We only use it at night and the moment the light goes on I feel like we are being watched.”
The carport we are trying to eat in
“It is dry and shady and somehow always feels like a garage.”
The seat beside the driveway
“It is in the shade and it is still unbearable, which makes no sense to me.”
The screened lanai with no air in it
“The screen keeps the bugs out and apparently the breeze as well.”
The bed at the bottom of the slope
“Everything down there goes over a fortnight before the same plant at the top of the garden.”
The strip along the fence where nothing fills out
“It gets sun. I have watched it get sun. The plants still lean and go thin at the base.”
The plot with nothing on it at all
“Half the plot burns in July and half of it never dries in March, and it is one flat rectangle.”
The bed under the maple
“Bulbs are magnificent and everything I plant for summer sulks.”
The raised beds against the pale wall
“Tomatoes ripen a fortnight early and then the leaves go papery at the edges.”
The bank that faces the wrong way
“It is not overhung by anything and it is still cold and dark until June.”
The pots on the roof that need watering twice a day
“In August I water them morning and evening and they still wilt by four.”
The hedge that browns on one side every winter
“The seaward half looks scorched by February and the sheltered half is fine.”
The lawn that is moss at one end
“Same seed, same feed, same mower. One end is grass and the other end is moss.”
The crushed-shell path that keeps moving
“I top it up every spring and by autumn it has sunk again and gone green in the corners.”
The July fix that February will hate
“We need shade for dinner in July, but this is also the only winter sun the room and patio get.”
The courtyard with two different privacy problems
“A screen fixes the upstairs window or the path, never both, and I do not want a box around the patio.”
The patio that disappears into its own glass after dark
“At night all we see is ourselves and the wall light reflected in the doors.”
The covered patio the low sun still reaches
“The roof fixes noon and does absolutely nothing at dinner when the sun comes underneath it.”
The wind comes from the view
“The only direction worth looking is exactly where the evening wind arrives from.”
The slab that is too hot in July and too slow to dry in November
“It burns bare feet in summer and grows slime under the tree in the wet season. One material answer cannot pretend those are the same problem.”