Vestibule: Form and Function

Vestibule (Photo by Diana Abrashkin AIA)

According to Wikipedia, the term vestibule has the fol­lowing mean­ings: entryway, lobby, entrance hall,  pas­sage between the outer door and the inte­rior of a building, recep­tion area, antechamber or mud room.

Wikipedia also says “in con­tem­po­rary usage, a vestibule con­sti­tutes an area sur­rounding the exte­rior door. It acts as an ante-​​chamber between the exte­rior and the inte­rior struc­ture. Often it con­nects the doorway to a lobby or hallway. It is the space one occu­pies once inside the door, but not yet into the main inte­rior of the building.

Vestibule Dia­gram

Although vestibules are common in pri­vate res­i­dences as a mod­i­fied mud room, they are espe­cially preva­lent in build­ings designed to elicit a sense of Much grandeur, such as gov­ern­ment build­ings. The res­i­dence of the White House in the United States is just such an example. It con­tains a vestibule between the entrance at the North Por­tico and the main inte­rior hall. Many gov­ern­ment build­ings mimic the clas­sical archi­tec­ture from which the vestibule originates.

The White House

The White House Vestibule

A purely util­i­tarian use of vestibules in modern build­ings is to create an “air lock” entry. Such vestibules con­sist of merely a set of inner doors and a set of outer doors. The intent of such vestibules is to reduce air infil­tra­tion to the building by having only one set of doors open at any given time. This can reduce heating and air con­di­tioning loads.”

Vestibule Inte­rior View (Photo by LDa Archi­tec­ture & Interiors)

Vestibule ( Photo cour­tesy of Brian Wat­ford ID)

We love the way they look, not just the func­tion they per­form. They add style and archi­tec­tural detail to any home.

Tell us — what do you think of vestibules?