The winter garden, between timeless design and home automation

The pleasure to live the contact with nature all year long, enjoying its beauty, from a comfortable space, sheltered and highly functional.

The winter gardens have always been one of the most suggestive rooms of the house: used as a living on the border between indoor and outdoor or as office or again as solarium, they bring inside every building the unique well-being of the open-air life. Thanks to advanced technologies and refined design, the outdoor structures have exalted the concept of wintergarten making it a smart and dynamic space, adaptable to the most different architectural contexts.

1. How to realize a winter garden

The winter garden represents a real house’s extension outwards: it is a space that embraces the surroundings nature, a meeting point among the house’s rooms and the neighboring scenery.

It is usually realized with own architectural characteristics different from the materials and the compositions of the original house, since they are often spaces added afterward.  The characteristic that distinguishes these additional volumes are the big glass surfaces, element that we will examine in depth in the next paragraph.  

Historically the winter gardens originate at the end of the Eighteenth Century in England as an extension of the own house towards the garden: a sort of greenhouse living, where to grow the plants even during the cold season.  

The winter garden spreads itself rapidly in all Europe and turns into an important architectonical element over the years: an “additional” room to host convivial or relaxing moments as reading rooms, small living rooms, verandas, dining rooms and leisure spaces.

An escape space to be cautiously designed both technically and aesthetically; we list below some suggestions about the aspects to consider in the initial evaluation:

1. Analyze carefully the available space and consider the relative municipal legislation referred totherealization of verandas, pergolas and similar elements: the veranda realized as winter garden‘s covering can be realized with different materials and can be equipped with fixed or extendible glass closings, causing an increase of the house’s volume;
2. Analyze the desired function for the space of the winter garden: living’s extension, reading room or office. Depending on the type of use, the technical choices about the covering and the solutions for the arrangement of furniture and greenery too will be different;
3. Discuss with an expert consultant in solar screening solutions to evaluate the most correct product based on need: the solutions for the covering’s movement (with blades or retractable cloth, for example) and for the integration of side awnings to protect the space from sun and from indiscreet eyes are various.

2. Use of verandas in the realization of winter gardens: Glass Series windows

For its collection of pergolas, Pratic has planned special Slide Glass perimeter closings: a real fixture that guarantees an excellent thermal insulation with a suggestive and perfect transparent wall. Made up of tempered safety glass, 10 or 12 mm thick, these minimal and special glass windows maintain the desired inner temperature, making them ideal for winter and in case of bad weather.

Through a rail system perfectly integrated inside the structure, the Slide Glass can slide and overlap in order to open every single pergola’s wall. There are also fixed solutions – Fix Glass – equipped with an elegant profile of aluminum, which can be combined with the Door Glass: doors made up of tempered glass without perimeter profiles and which can be designed as one’s like with single or double solution, also without fixed panel. The Pratic Glass Series collection has undergone the CE certification passing the tests of air, water and wind permeability of the Istituto Giordano, referring institution in the product and planning testing.

3. The winter garden: the modern solutions for the covering

How to make these spaces even more modern and innovative? The bioclimatic pergolas lend a modern style to the advanced design of winter gardens turning them into harmonic and multi-purpose rooms that redraw the living rules. The bioclimatic technology of Pratic offers the choice between covering with adjustable blades or retractable blades.

The first ones stand out for adjustable blades that turn and create the desired comfort conditions: the movement is automatic and silent and in few seconds, the blades can be risen or retracted taking advanced of the external elements as light or wind in a complete and natural way.

Something different is the covering solution with retractable blades in a narrow space, to enjoy a further window to the sky. The blades’ movement ensures the best climate conditions because it allows the natural temperature regulation through the light modulation and the air recirculation. In case of rain, the screening is total. The blades close hermetically and the rainwater flows inside perimeter gutters integrated in the structure. The application of the home automation allows also the management of the covering per remote control and mobile app. Special light, wind and rain sensors determinate the automatic opening and closing.

4. Furnishing a winter garden: space for optionals

The use of a bioclimatic pergola to create a winter garden allows to have at disposal further furniture options: from lighting to privacy, there are many optionals that make each project unique:

1. Vertical awnings of Raso perfectly integrate into the supporting profile of compatible pergolas, thus offering protection and privacy. They are available in screening and blackout fabric; when closed, the cover is fully hidden inside the horizontal profile of the pergola, only twenty two cm high;
2. The pleasure to live the outdoors until the night is prolonged in a simple and evocative way, thanks to Led Line perimeter lighting that, since it’s dimmable and color adjustable, creates refined and spectacular visual effects. Spot lighting allows to enjoy additional lighting, thanks to recessed spot lights that can be placed in the blades of the cover and that can be adjusted in any position.
3. To complete the customization, there’s the most innovative solution developed by the R&D development by Pratic: Set, the platform, that is indissolubly integrated into the structure of the pergola, thus solving the recurring problem of installation soil slope. A structural element fully customizable, thanks to the possibility of choosing finishes and materials for the walkable floor.

5. Photos of winter gardens: some inspirations

To complete our article, we would like to inspire you by showing some pictures and photos of winter gardens that well represent the extension of living zone outside. Airy spaces, panoramic views, for an everyday life to live between indoor and outdoor.