Enclosed Timber Balconies

Enclosed Timber Balconies is an original illustration set in Coastal Lima, Peru. It lies in the tropics, where the climate is cold desert — arid, with freezing winters.

Deep enclosed wooden box balconies project over the pavement, their faces covered in rows of tiny shuttered openings and supported on heavy carved corbels. The stucco walls behind are pale. The street is grey with fog, and everything looks damp but unrained-on.

Why is the balcony fully enclosed instead of open?

A fully enclosed balcony with shutters instead of an open rail is a screen — see out, not be seen in — and the form travelled here from North Africa by way of Iberia. Timber survives on the facades because this coast almost never rains: it sits under persistent fog from a cold current offshore, humid enough to grey the air and too stable to produce a shower.

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