Yes, Your Home Can Have An Outdoor Shower
Design pros say owners of suburban and city dwellings increasingly want to enjoy the thrill of sudsing up in the fresh air.
Design pros say owners of suburban and city dwellings increasingly want to enjoy the thrill of sudsing up in the fresh air.
LATHERING UP OUTDOORS is among life’s most wholesome kicks. Sun hits body parts that rarely see the light of day while water falls like rain beneath blue sky. Why must one wait for a stay at the beach to enjoy a fresh-air scrub?
One needn’t, says New York City designer David Frazier: “Outdoor showers enliven a daily task and are becoming increasingly popular in metropolitan locales,” he said. Outside stalls exemplify biophilic design—a trend connecting people to nature that has surged during the pandemic, said Graeme Labe, principal at hospitality design firm Luxury Frontiers in Johannesburg, South Africa. His studio recently outfitted luxury resort Camp Sarika by Amangiri in Canyon Point, Utah, with shower cabinets that open onto a soul-soothing vista of red-sand desert mesas.
To a greater degree than their country cousins, outdoor “city” showers must balance privacy with delicious exposure to the elements—unless commissioned by exhibitionists. Designers rely on everything from frosted-glass cubicle walls to portable folding screens to ensure discretion without killing the view or the al fresco feel, says New York architect Philip Consalvo. Mr. Frazier walled one outdoor shower in a West Point, Ga., home with a mix of pierced brick and horizontal cedar slats. Fresh air can squeeze through but nosy eyes can’t.
In a well-secluded yard, you can just slap a faucet against a wall and plumb it. Otherwise, you need walls to block the neighbours’ sightlines. In Austin, Texas, designer Claire Zinnecker and architecture firm Alterstudio were tasked with creating a plein-air shower for clients who had only side neighbours to contend with. They created a roomy but private alcove enclosed on three sides by a teak fence, a tan-brick wall and glass doors to an interior bathroom.
Lush vegetation can help. The walled garden of furniture designer Glenn Lawson’s 1920s Spanish revival home in Los Angeles is jungle-y enough that just two shower partitions sufficed. He chose inexpensive, naturally waterproof stucco to align with his architecture.
If your shower is surrounded by taller buildings, modesty requires more cover overhead. Susana Simonpietri, founder of design firm Chango & Co., topped the stall in her Brooklyn townhome’s garden with a trellis and encouraged climbing vines to make it opaque.
In Sharon, Conn., textile designer John Robshaw fitted a shower rig to his suburban home’s shingle siding so he could rinse off after tending to his garden. Though he shielded his setup from neighbours’ eyes by planting flowering dogwood, he realized his own guest-room windows posed a problem. The shower, he said, was “tricky to use when guests are in town.” Interior drapes offered a solution.
Reprinted by permission of Mansion Global. Copyright 2021 Dow Jones & Company. Inc. All Rights Reserved Worldwide. Original date of publication: August 11, 2022.
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Savvy high net worth players from Australia and Asia are getting on board as the residential landscape shifts
Build-to-rent (BTR) residential property has emerged as one of the key sectors of interest among institutional and private high-net-worth investors across the Asia-Pacific region, according to a new report from CBRE. In a survey of 500 investors, BTR recorded the strongest uptick in interest, particularly among investors targeting value-added strategies to achieve double-digit returns.
CBRE said the residential investment sector is set to attract more capital this year, with investors in Japan, Australia and mainland China the primary markets of focus for BTR development. BTR is different from regular apartment developments because the developer or investor–owner retains the entire building for long-term rental income. Knight Frank forecasts that by 2030, about 55,000 dedicated BTR apartments will have been completed in Australia.
Knight Frank says BTR is a proven model in overseas markets and Australia is now following suit.
“Investors are gravitating toward the residential sector because of the perception that it offers the ability to adjust rental income streams more quickly than other sectors in response to high inflation,” Knight Frank explained in a BTR report published in September 2023.
The report shows Melbourne has the most BTR apartments under construction, followed by Sydney. Most of them are one and two-bedroom apartments. The BTR sector is also growing in Canberra and Perth where land costs less and apartment rental yields are among the highest in the country at 5.1 percent and 6.1 percent, respectively, according to the latest CoreLogic data.
In BTR developments, there is typically a strong lifestyle emphasis to encourage renters to stay as long as possible. Developments often have proactive maintenance programs, concierges, add-on cleaning services for tenants, and amenities such as a gym, pool, yoga room, cinema, communal working spaces and outdoor barbecue and dining areas.
Some blocks allow tenants to switch apartments as their space needs change, many are pet-friendly and some even run social events for residents. However, such amenities and services can result in BTR properties being expensive to rent. Some developers and investors have been given subsidies to reserve a portion of BTR apartments as ‘affordable homes’ for local essential services workers.
Ray White chief economist Nerida Conisbee says Australian BTR is a long way behind the United States, where five percent of the country’s rental supply is owned by large companies. She says BTR is Australia’s “best bet” to raise rental supply amid today’s chronic shortage that has seen vacancy rates drop below 1% nationwide and rents skyrocket 40% over the past four years.
Ms Conisbee says 84 percent of Australian rental homes are owned by private landlords, typically mum and dad investors, and nine percent are owned by governments. “With Australia currently in the midst of a rental crisis, the question of who provides rental properties needs to be considered,” Ms Conisbee said. “We have relied heavily on private landlords for almost all our rental properties but we may not be able to so readily in the future.” She points out that large companies can access and manage debt more easily than private landlords when interest rates are high.
The CBRE report shows that Asia-Pacific investors are also interested in other types of residential properties. These include student accommodation, particularly in high migration markets like Australia, and retirement communities in markets with ageing populations, such as Japan and Korea. Most Asia Pacific investors said they intended to increase or keep their real estate allocations the same this year, with more than 50 percent of Australian respondents intending to invest more.
Consumers are going to gravitate toward applications powered by the buzzy new technology, analyst Michael Wolf predicts
This stylish family home combines a classic palette and finishes with a flexible floorplan