Cushions for Arizona and the desert Southwest

Eighty-five percent sunshine and a UV Index of 11

In Phoenix the sun behaves like a material, the way wood or stone does, and it works on a cushion every clear day.

Phoenix and Tucson get about 85% of their possible sunshine. Phoenix averages 170 days a year at 90°F (32°C) or above, and in 2024, its warmest year on record, it logged 70 days at 110°F (43°C) or more. The July noon UV Index averages 11.0 there and 11.4 in Albuquerque, higher despite the northern latitude because the city sits at altitude.

The air is bone dry. Phoenix humidity averages 46% in the morning and 23% in the afternoon, and June afternoons fall to about 12%. Then the monsoon arrives, officially June 15 to September 30, with dust storms, lightning, damaging wind and sudden rain. Phoenix gets only 7.22 in (18 cm) of rain a year, and about half of it falls July through September.

The high desert turns it around: Flagstaff averages 90.1 in of snow and 203 freezing days. So dry heat is not gentle on fabric. UV is the damage.

Portales, ramadas and the plastered banco

Pueblo Revival houses, the Santa Fe style, have adobe or adobe-look walls, flat roofs and thick, battered walls; they were most popular in the 1920s and 1930s. Territorial houses date from 1846 to 1912. Around them stand Spanish Colonial Revival homes, mid-century ranches and desert-modern houses of glass under deep shade structures.

The seats follow the walls. A banco is a solid built-in bench, often plastered, inside near a kiva fireplace or outside along a garden wall. Its cushion is long, custom-shaped and sometimes curved, so it goes on the custom-shape listing with a drawing or a photographed full-size paper template. Thick adobe walls make generous window seats; the bay window cushions hub covers the angled ones. Then come shaded seats under portales and ramadas, pool loungers and floor seating in the casita. Start with outdoor cushions.

Where does the late light land in your house, my friends: on the banco or on the portal?

Caliche, clay and sage: color that stays cool in the sun

On a sun-facing patio at 110°F, a black cushion is a skillet. Lighter desert tones stay cooler under bare legs and hide the slow work of the sun better than dark ones: caliche sand, bleached oatmeal, fired-clay terracotta, the gray-green of sage after rain, and one clear note of turquoise.

Whites need a careful eye. In the outdoor range, M-7 and M-19 have a soft cream ground, S-09 leans stark white, and S-29 and S-30 read more beige. Stripes need one too: the dark stripe of HM-23 reads ink navy, not black, though it looks black from across the pool. The roll is about 55 in (140 cm) wide, so on a long cushion the stripes run front to back, and a long striped piece needs a seam.

Let one color speak and the others listen: a terracotta seat, sand pillows, a single turquoise lumbar. Ask for close-up photos or samples and hold them outside at noon before you decide. Outdoor fabric and linen each have a page in the Swatch Library, and the fabric yardage calculator helps if you want extra fabric for pillows.