Designing Outdoor Spaces with the Home

The site is selected—something connects with you. This will be your home. Some sites are vast, others tight. Golf course views, woodland ravines, jagged peaks and diaphanous blue water lines bring timeless, authentic wonder and art. From the first schematic sketch, the home’s form is used to bring the site into the home. Just as a sculptor shapes their art, as architects we sculpt space. And as we build the home, we simultaneously create the outdoor living spaces.

We shape outdoor rooms with the same warmth and principles that are used for an interior space. The edges of the home help to define the “room.” These are the first walls. But for an outdoor room to succeed, it needs to also have a scale. Once the large gesture of the home takes shape, we soften the edges, continually refining the artistry of the structure. We extend rooflines to further develop intimacy, creating a sense of purpose and scale—shaping the vast site and home into an intimate, intentional space that reflects how you live.

The cohesive approach of designing both indoor and outdoor spaces at once results in a soft overlap. Walls of glass align with the terrace edge to blur the inside boundary and allow nature to gently enter the home without effort. Trellis overhangs and typical indoor elements, like a fireplace, brings the indoor sense of place to the outdoors.

With walls of windows capturing the vistas, the terrace view is also an integral part of the composition. Furniture placement, lighting and sound are all considered to be sure the outside has the same consideration of livability as the interior. Working with the landscape architect, we like to see the life of planting areas cut into the hardscape to bring warmth to the view, break up the terrace and to continue the language of a softer transition from the home to nature.

As an architect, I believe the land where one chooses to build is sacred and our intervention should honor its artistry. We weave the essence of the site into the home, so when it is complete, you live and engage with the intrinsic beauty that brought you to call this location your home.