Most balconies in new Milan flats are a metre deep. You can stand on one, or keep a bicycle on it, but you cannot live on it.
Two and a half metres
At Corte Vigentina we argued for loggias two and a half metres deep, big enough for a table and six chairs. The cooperative's members voted for it over a larger kitchen.
A year later
We went back in June. Half the loggias had a table in them, a third had plants up to the ceiling and one had a piano. That is the point of a room: it becomes whatever people need.