# Home Balconies during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Future Architect's Preferences in Lisbon and Warsaw
### Design Roles, Features, and Functions  
The architect and/or designer have the task of balancing the balcony's functional and formal/compositional features, including its harmonious integration into the building's facade [32]. Additionally, a correctly designed balcony can enhance the overall building performance on several fields [14]. It can provide privacy and acoustic shielding [33; 34], improve thermal comfort, natural ventilation, and air quality [35], lighting conditions, and glaring protection [36], solar shading, and even reduce energy consumption [37] and acclimatisation loads [14]. On the ventilation side, the study by [PERSON] et al. [38] assessed a balcony using a Computational Fluid Dynamics model considering its type, depth, wind angle and orientation, and concluded that the natural ventilation performance might improve up to 80% depending on design decisions. When it comes to decreasing energy consumption, [PERSON] et al. 's [36] study focused on the potential of bioclimatic passivestrategies in residential college buildings in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and concluded that the use of balconies and patios not only improved indoor ventilation and lighting conditions, but also resulted in electricity savings (up to 90% per year considering all strategies) assessed on the Energy Efficiency Index over a 9-year period. At an acoustical level, [PERSON] et al. [33] assessed nine balcony types with several acoustic design variations (9720 tested scenarios) to determine the best solution depending on site conditions and specifications. Simultaneously, the balcony design needs to be adaptable enough to be used all year round, accommodating different functions [39]. In the Architects Data guidance [40] (p. 295), the functions of a balcony are not dissociated from its design. In contrast, several proposals concerning the balcony dimensions and shape consider the furniture size (e.g., sunbeds, tables, and chairs), which suggests a possible range for activities to take place. Due to size restrictions, most balconies do not have any specific function, usually performing ancillary activities, such as resting, observing the surroundings, or drying laundry, especially during periods of good weather. Often located next to the living room or kitchen, they serve as natural extensions for entertaining, dining, and relaxing. The possibility of creating a space for isolation or new needs, such as working, studying, and kids playground, highlights the balcony's flexibility to accommodate different functions now and in the future [5]. Among the limited number of publications addressing the issues of balcony design, activities, and usage in residential contexts during the pandemic, the authors highlight the weight that Middle Eastern countries have on this subject (see Appendix A, Table A1 for a summarised version). In Turkey, 48.1% of the 160 participants in the [PERSON] and [PERSON] study showed that owning a home balcony was beneficial during lockdowns. In addition, its importance grew, as well as the time people spent on it engaging in different activities, although that depended on the balcony's orientation, shape, and size. The latter was revealed to be a key factor, mainly due to the lack of functionality that small-sized balconies with narrow rectangular shapes display for the development of activities. Moreover, the most adapted balconies displayed larger areas (55.01% 4-6 m\({}^{2}\); and 68.20% 7-10 m\({}^{2}\)) due to the spatial potential they inherently had [11]. In the same country, [PERSON]'s study of 500 respondents in Bursa aimed to assess the post-pandemic lifestyle changes, concluding that confinements had an impact on the time spent in outdoor semi-private areas (balcony and patios), where 35.7% of the participants stated using it for 1-2 h; 16.1% 3-4 h; 6.3% 5-6 h; and 4.5% more than 6 h per day. In addition, 4% revealed that they are using the balcony to receive guests and entertain, and 84% to air packages, clothes, and groceries [41].