Alluring Atriums : Design: They bring light, greenery and color into a house, creating a new environment. Adding a garden room can achieve a similar effect.
Ever since humans moved into their first shelter, they have tried to bring nature indoors with them.
The ancient Greeks first popularized atriums--wall-enclosed plant areas that open to the sky--and people in the Victorian era called their glass-structured garden rooms conservatories.
The ‘60s brought everyone into the act of making plants thrive indoors. Then the National Aeronautics and Space Administration released a report that common house plants help purify the air in enclosed areas. Clean air is of particular concern to NASA, since no one wants stale air in a space station.
Experiments at the John C. Stennis Space Center in Mississippi proved that house plants--pothos, Spider plant, English ivy, Dracaena marginata-- remove deadly benzene, formaldehyde, trichloroethylene and carbon monoxide from the air.
But most people are less scientific about bringing plants indoors. They do it mainly to create a pleasing environment. Some people even devote entire rooms to plants, building a garden room or an atrium.
“The idea of a garden room is either to open the house up to an actual garden or to bring nature into the house by creating an environment,” said John Garcia, president of PLANit Design Studio in Corona del Mar. “Most people don’t have views of a bay, they have flat city lots with no view. But that doesn’t mean they can’t create an outdoor environment in a room.”
A garden room can mean anything from a greenhouse kitchen window with potted herbs on the shelves to a proper greenhouse room or an enclosed patio overgrown with plants. An atrium, on the other hand, is a much more specific term describing a glass-enclosed area inside a house, with an earthen floor and usually no ceiling.
A garden room can be an easy addition to a home, while an atrium is such an integral part of a structure that an architect is typically hired to add one to an existing home.
“Usually an atrium already exists in a structure. To build one means you need an architect because it usually means structural changes,” said Steve Rose, owner of Purkiss-Ross Landscape Architecture in Fullerton. “If a client were to ask (for) natural light and foliage, I’d probably say go with a garden room. A screened porch transformed into a garden room comes off real nice, and it’s a lot cheaper to do.”
The difficulty in adding an atrium comes from cutting out the roof and altering the floor for proper drainage, Rose explained. “People who have atriums with poor drainage (solve the problem by) roofing them over and converting the area to usable living space.”
Atriums are used by architects to bring natural light into a dark house. The down side is that they allow heat in too. “You see atriums in master baths, usually with a roof. That’s a good choice because the humidity isn’t as much a problem,” Rose said.
Some people who have atriums add a cover that allows sunlight to filter in but cuts down the heat. Rose added a nursery saran cover over the atrium in his Orange home. “(Or) you could keep the illusion of it being open to the sky by putting in a skylight. But if you do that you have to put in adequate ventilation to keep the condensation down.”
Rose lived in one of the Eichler Homes in Orange, which were designed with atriums as the central theme by architect Quincy Jones about 20 years ago. The Eichler Co. built two tracts of houses with atriums in the city of Orange; one off Cambridge Street and Taft Avenue, and the other off Santiago Boulevard.
The tract off Cambridge has about 10 houses and is a favorite among landscape architects, Rose said. “One of the most telling aspects of the Eichler homes is that most of the original owners still live in them. They are just very well-designed homes.”
Nature puts up a fight when brought indoors, and atrium upkeep poses some problems. Like any indoor flora, atrium plants are susceptible to aphids, those soft, oval, tiny insects that leave a sticky residue on leaves. Once aphids or other pests like whiteflies descend, it’s almost impossible to get rid of them, according to Rose.
“They are attracted to all the humidity inside the atrium. The way I always handle it is to use a strong stream of water to shoot them off,” Rose said. “I don’t like to use chemicals indoors.”
Weeds do not pose much of a problem but maintainence keeps atrium gardeners busy. “One way to handle overgrowth is to cut plants down continually, especially the leading trunk,” Rose said. By cutting the main growth, new shoots will sprout at the bottom, keeping the plant wide and compact rather than tall.
“Another way to restrict plant growth is to restrict the root growth. If you have a plant that’s the right size, (keep it in its original pot) and plant it in the ground, and that will keep it at that size,” Rose said.
Most people use plants that grow too high in their atriums, Rose said, and when they shoot up toward the sky, the only view the homeowner sees is a forest of tree trunks. If an atrium is large enough to accommodate trees, Rose advises that an undergrowth of shorter plants be cultivated.
“(The) type of plants to use depends on the exposure. If you have shade, then full sun and afternoon shade, you want to use a plant that can withstand the full noon sun and still tolerate shade--like a ficus,” Rose said. “Because of the climate in Southern California, we have the widest variety of plant materials at our nurseries and everything is available” for atriums.
For a small atrium, star jasmine and schefflera are good choices, according to Rose. “I also trained a fiddle-leaf fig as a vine and made it run overhead for a canopy.”
But atriums are not limited to foliage. If the room is large enough, people have installed hot tubs and surrounded them with jungle growth. “Some people use them as a breakfast area. It’s a nice way to wake up in the morning,” Rose said. “(Or) turn it into a sculpture garden, instead of trying to convert the area to living space. You can always tell when you go in a home where there used to be an atrium. It just doesn’t blend well.”
If you’re considering adding a garden room, there are several steps that need to be taken before the work begins. How much you want to spend “should be the first decision, even before you talk to any experts,” Garcia said. “Then think about what experts you need. Are you just looking to change (the room’s) decor or do you need additions? A designer can do a lot to create an environment but if you need to change a structure, you need an architect and contractor.”
Next, consider the room’s primary use: Is it going to cater to plants or humans? If plants are the main occupants, a traditional glass-house structure is the best choice, but not the cheapest, and a greenhouse attached to living space is going to add a great deal of heat to the house.
To achieve the feeling of being outdoors, use traditional materials such as glass, stone and stucco. Rough-hewn ceiling beams add an outdoor feeling. Furnishing the room calls for “wicker, rattan, wrought iron. Anything that reminds you of a garden will heighten the outdoors atmosphere of a room. If the ceilings are high enough, add a patio umbrella,” Garcia said.
Garcia converted a patio into a garden room for the owners of a house on Balboa Peninsula. “The (owners) had a patio that had a terrific view of the bay, but they could rarely use it because it was so breezy and damp, even with a glass wall around the patio.”
The garden room included a Japanese teahouse that was designed by an architect. “We put in a slate floor and created a seating area and put a planter in to separate that area from the teahouse.”
A fountain was also added. Water flows from a hollow bamboo trough into a round wooden tub that is surrounded by pebbles and plants. The room was accented with orchids and ferns. Hiding behind sliding Japanese screens are a pool table and small study area.
Oriental decor lends itself well to a garden room, Garcia said, but it’s not the only choice. “A Southwest room with cactus would be great. Remember, you’re not creating a structure but an environment. When you find a room you like, sit in it and try and pinpoint what it is that makes the room wonderful for you. Figure out what it is that appeals to your senses.”
In the Balboa Peninsula garden room, fabrics for the furnishings were chosen because they could withstand a solar beating without fading or succumbing to sun-rot. “As a bonus it also makes it a good room for kids and dogs, very durable,” Garcia said.
Creating a child-friendly room led Garcia to transform a seldom-used patio off the kitchen in his Santa Ana home into a garden room for his infant daughter. “We have a very small back yard that backs up on a hill and really doesn’t have any safe play areas. The room will give my daughter a place to run around in where she can still be easily supervised without being hovered over.”
A retaining wall was built with green drywall, which Garcia said can withstand more moisture then other boards. He has also put sufficient drainage in the new concrete floor.
Fourteen-foot-high ceilings give it an expanded sense of space and allow for large hanging plants and a swing set for Garcia’s daughter. French doors open off the kitchen into the room.
Skylights add more natural light and an illusion of height, and casement windows take advantage of natural breezes. “I think of garden rooms as being sails; you want to keep them full of wind,” Garcia said.
“It’s very important that any addition be compatible to the existing architecture. Otherwise the addition can end up looking like a lean-to,” Garcia said.
At 30 feet by 15 feet, the room cost $25,000. “It’s not cheap if it’s done correctly,” Garcia said. But a homeowner does not have to take out a second mortgage to create an environment with plants. “A little rock garden using special stones and pebbles accented with maiden-hair fern, that can be done very cheaply,” Garcia said.
