Courtyards, Gardens, and Plants

Cox initially conceived the deck as a conventional surface for relaxing and entertaining. With the bench, however, he seized an opportunity to create something both functional and visually arresting. “You go down these paths and, as the design mutates, other ideas attach themselves and make it stronger and more interesting,” he says.

An artist and an architect built their home, studios, and an exhibition space inside a lushly landscaped Antwerp warehouse.

For the breezeway, Schwartz used concrete to achieve the feel of a hardscape courtyard. Uma basks beneath the egg-shaped opening.

Architect Ken Meffan's ten-years-in-the-making home is located in the tiny Northern California town of Rough and Ready—a term that might as aptly refer to the house itself. Though all the on-site plants are mundane home-center varieties, they grow to uncanny heights in the moist, sunny environment.

Via The Design Files, photo by Lucy Feagins

Architects Simone Carneiro and Alexandre Skaff transformed a cramped São Paulo apartment into a mid-city refuge for Simone Santos. On the terrace, plants, vines, and pergolas form a barrier against the city’s notorious noise and pollution.

A maple tree grows through an ipe deck in this garden that Mary Barensfeld designed for a family in Berkeley, California. A reflecting pool separates it from a granite patio, which is furnished with a Petal dining table by Richard Schultz and chairs by Mario Bellini. The 1,150-square-foot garden serves as an elegant transition from the couple’s 1964 Japanese-style town house to a small, elevated terrace with views of San Francisco Bay. Filigreed Cor-Ten steel fence screens—perforated with a water-jet cutter to cast dappled shadows on a bench and the ground below—and zigzagging board-formed concrete retaining walls are examples.

“Eichlers aren’t very big—that’s why so much emphasis was on the outside. The house had to look like it extended out.” —Bernard Trainor, landscape designer

Michael and Tamami brought greenery to the master bath courtyard, which is lined with Eco Arbor Designs deck tiles, in the form of succulents in a ceramic Peanut planter by John Follis for Architectural Pottery from Vessel. Photo by Coral von Zumwalt.

Burnette sought to maintain the property’s natural vegetation and rocky ground surface.

A path created with Stepstone's narrow concrete pavers meanders through the garden past the master bedroom.

This serene retreat by acclaimed Italian designers Ludovica+Roberto Palomba, carved out of a 17th-century oil mill in Salento, demonstrates the charm of historic Italy.

A mix of polyethylene seating and rustic stonework is in the home's courtyard.

A door leads out from the romantic courtyard, lush with plants. “Although we live in a big city, it doesn’t feel like it,” Kolasiński says. “The neighborhood and the nature are very relaxing and quiet.”

Separating the living room from a smaller seating area is a polished concrete courtyard that can be used for quiet reading or shaded play on hot days. “[It] has become the focus of family life,” Trimble says.

Table and chairs from Marc Berthier's 1968 Ozoo collection for Roche Bobois

A giant indoor/outdoor courtyard landscaped with tropical plants and volcanic sand, in Antwerp, Belgium. (Photo by Tim Van de Velde)