Veranda

Winifred Rawson tending her son on the veranda of The Hollow, near Mackay, Queensland, ~1873

A heritage listed building in Hungary

The veranda has featured quite prominently in Australian vernacular architecture and first became widespread in colonial buildings during the 1850s. The Victorian Filigree architecture style is used by residential (particularly terraced houses in Australia and New Zealand) and commercial buildings (particularly hotels) across Australia and features decorative screens of wrought iron, cast iron "lace" or wood fretwork. The Queenslander is a style of residential construction in Queensland, Australia, which is adapted to subtropical climates and characterized in part by its large verandas, which sometimes encircle the entire house.

The bandeirista style house from Brazil typically has a veranda positioned to face the sunrise.[6]

In regions with heavy snowfall, especially Aomori and Niigata prefectures, structures called Gangi-Zukuri (ja:雁木造) have been developed since the Edo period. For example, the total length of Gangi in old Takada city is over 16 Kilometers.[7]

In Poland, the word "weranda" is commonly used for the unheated roofed annex to a house, without walls or with glass walls.

The Creole townhouse in New Orleans, Louisiana, is also noted for its prominent use of verandas. In fact, most houses constructed in the Southern United States before the advent of air conditioning were built with a covered front porch or veranda.

Spanish Colonial architecture (as well as the "Mission style" revivalist version that became popular in the Western United States in the early 1900s) commonly incorporates verandas, both on the exterior of buildings and, in cases of buildings with courtyards, along the interior walls of courtyards. In some cases, homes were constructed with every room opening into a courtyard veranda, rather than interior corridors or direct connections to other rooms.

Being a warm, tropical country porches for houses was a natural idea in India. In Northern India where Central Asian influence was strong such porches were rather a walled courtyard.

However, in South India, especially in hot humid western coastal region porches veranda style porches are very common especially in states like Kerala and Konkan. There was a strong Portuguese and Dutch influence in that part of the country.

The origin of word veranda in English language owes a lot to this region. The Portuguese word varanda got into the local language as verandah especially in Malayalam and Marathi. This later migrated into other languages including English as loan word.

Given its Portuguese, Dutch and British rule, many colonial Sri Lankan bungalows feature verandas. In the Sri Lankan Walauwa (a house once used by headmen under colonial rule) it is used as a space for leisure where families will spend time or read newspapers. Given the rarity of the architectural style in contemporary Sri Lanka houses with verandas are often featured in local films and dramas and symbolise a wealthy household.