Endless Summer Holidays
The brief
The owners got in touch in 2020 during the first wave of the pandemic. They had just ordered a hot tub and wanted a garden with a holiday vibe built around it. The garden needed to make them feel like they had travelled abroad, offering an escape to their London lockdown. It also needed to provide space for outdoor entertainment, at a time when gathering with friends and family was only allowed outside.
What we did
We couldn’t remodel the garden’s existing tiers too much for cost reasons but we didn’t however want to see all of the garden at once (see before pic). We therefore created snugs and rooms to be discovered as you walk up the garden using dense and lush planting layers to screen them. The ample entertaining space (offering a breakfast bar/ party-ready bar area) on the top level can’t be seen until you’ve reached it. A “sit-in-the-shade” corner, a sunbathing deck and an evening sun lounge corner are also to be found nested in planting. The existing curved and uneven steps were replaced with staggered straight steps. The new steps have become a feature in themselves, instantly making the garden more playful and inviting. They were also a big hit with my client’s love of brutalist architecture and raw concrete.
After
