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The impluvium is the sunken part of the atrium in a Greek or Roman house (domus). Designed to carry away the rainwater coming through the compluvium of the roof, it is usually made of marble and placed about 30 cm below the floor of the atrium and emptied into a subfloor cistern.
Inspection (without excavation) of impluvia in Paestum, Pompeii and Rome indicated that the pavement surface in the impluvia was porous, or that the non-porous stone tiles were separated by gaps significant enough to allow a substantial quantity of water caught in the basin of the impluvium to filter through the cracks and, beyond, through layers of gravel and sand into a holding chamber below ground. A circular stone opening protected with a puteal (easily visible in one photograph, resembling a chimney pot) allows easy access by bucket and rope to this private, filtered and naturally cooled water supply.
Similar water supplies were found elsewhere in the public spaces of the city, with their stone puteals showing the wear patterns of much use (the rope wear patterns also are visible in the photograph). In wet seasons, excess water that could not pass through the filter would overflow the basin and exit the building, and any sediment or debris remaining in the surface basin could be swept away. In hot weather, water could be drawn from the cistern chamber (or fetched by slaves from supplies outside the domus) and cast into the shallow pool to evaporate and provide a cooling effect to the entire atrium: as the water evaporated, air drawn in through the compluvium was cooled and moved throughout the house to cool the surrounding living spaces, a form of passive cooling. The combination of compluvium and impluvium formed an ingenious, effective and attractive manner of collecting, filtering and cooling rainwater.
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In architecture, an atrium (plural: atria or atriums) is a large open-air or skylight-covered space surrounded by a building.Atria were a common feature in Ancient Roman dwellings, providing light and ventilation to the interior. Modern atria, as developed in the late 19th and 20th centuries, are often several stories high, with a glazed roof or large windows, and often located immediately beyond a building's main entrance doors (in the lobby).
Atria are a popular design feature because they give their buildings a "feeling of space and light."The atrium has become a key feature of many buildings in recent years.Atria are popular with building users, building designers and building developers. Users like atria because they create a dynamic and stimulating interior that provides shelter from the external environment while maintaining a visual link with that environment. Designers enjoy the opportunity to create new types of spaces in buildings, and developers see atria as prestigious amenities that can increase commercial value and appeal.
In a domus, a large house in ancient Roman architecture, the atrium was the open central court with enclosed rooms on all sides. In the middle of the atrium was the impluvium, a shallow pool sunken into the floor to catch rainwater from the roof. Some surviving examples are beautifully decorated. The opening in the ceiling above the pool (compluvium) called for some means of support for the roof, and it is here where one differentiates between five different styles of atrium. As the centrepiece of the house, the atrium was the most lavishly furnished room. Wealthier houses often included a marble cartibulum, an oblong marble table supported by trapezophoros pedestals depicting mythological creatures like winged griffins. Also, it contained the little chapel to the ancestral spirits (lararium), the household safe (arca) and sometimes a bust of the master of the house.
The term was also used for a variety of spaces in public and religious buildings, mostly forms of arcaded courtyards, larger versions of the domestic spaces. Byzantine churches were often entered through such a space.
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Das Compluvium (lat. com- ‚zusammen-‘, pluvia ‚Regen‘) ist ein offenes Oberlicht im Dach des antiken Atriums, eines Raums in einem Wohnhaus des italischen Typs.Das Compluvium ist als rechteckige Öffnung üblicherweise in der Mitte der Decke des Atriums eingelassen. Es dient zum einen der Belichtung des Atriums, das oft keine Außenwände und daher auch keine regulären Fenster aufweist. Zum anderen ermöglicht es den Einlass von Regenwasser, das in dem darunterliegenden Impluvium aufgefangen und von dort in eine Zisterne weitergeleitet wird.
Um die eingefangene Wassermenge zu erhöhen, sind die umliegenden Dachflächen bei der am weitesten verbreiteten Bauweise, dem „Atrium impluviatum“, nach innen geneigt, so dass die vier Dachtraufen die Oberkante der Dachöffnung bilden und somit das gesamte auf den Dachflächen auftreffende Wasser durch das Compluvium in das Impluvium geleitet wird.
(Wikipedia).