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998 Outdoor Hardscapes Design Photos And Ideas

The courtyard off the kitchen is an extension of the living space and a popular spot for morning coffee.
Garden with mature landscaping growing fruit, vegetables and flowers
Garden
The front courtyard is filled with lush greenery, creating an inviting storefront for the business.
Three brightly colored balconies and an overhanging roof define the home’s front facade.
The residence, which features two corrugated metal roofs that create natural ventilation for the interior, is set toward the rear of the lot, providing courtyard space for the owners' drink stall business.
Now, an eight-foot sliding door brings light into the kitchen and enables fluid movement between inside and out. The wider steps can serve as seats during a party, and they make for a graceful transition to the yard.
“The pitched ceilings and ribbon of clerestory windows make the interior feel more spacious than it is,” notes Gooden.
The ceiling of the exterior patio and soffits is crafted from inexpensive sheets of plywood cut into smaller pieces, assembled in a custom pattern, and stained.
The expansive, covered patio that extends from the living space features an outdoor kitchen and adjoining pizza oven. “My favorite aspect of the project was that the clients embraced the idea that home can be more than just shelter,” says architect Cavin Costello. “It can be a place that incentivizes you to socialize, think, eat, work, create, and play differently.”
A cactus garden planted in between the glazed wall in front of the stair and the brise-soleil connects the home to the landscape.
“The intention of the landscape design was to create a tranquil refuge in a vibrant neighborhood for the family to entertain, play, and spend quality time together outdoors,” says the team at The Green Room Landscape Architecture. “The architecture produced multiple lines of sight that penetrate through the home, connecting the front and back yards with similar plant materials, creating a feeling that the house was planted in a scenic Sonoran meadow.”
The pool and fire pit in the courtyard are at the heart of the home. The olive trees and native Ironwood trees planted around these spaces soften the rectilinear architecture.
Before the home was built, the lot was almost entirely grass—however now the landscape is composed of desert and native vegetation. It also includes productive gardens of numerous types, including herb and vegetable plantings and citrus and stone fruit groves. These, in combination with the chicken eggs, provide a healthy, local food source.
Photo: Willem-Dirk du Toit
The new volume extends into the backyard but increases the house’s footprint by only 225 square feet. It is slightly taller than the existing structure, minimizing overlap between roofs. The cladding is composed of marine-grade plywood panels, colored black with Benjamin Moore’s Arborcoat exterior stain, to create an affordable facsimile of cement fiberboard panels. The patio is paved in black decomposed granite.
In this home in Venice Beach, California, every interior space is accompanied by an outdoor room. The homeowners often dine on the patio adjacent to the kitchen. The rooms are intimately scaled but feel expansive due to their visual and physical connection to the environment.
The decorative screen casts playful shadows across the front terrace.
The new front door, offset by a stained wood surround, leads into an entry vestibule that connects the guest wing with the rest of the house.
Now, decorative screens "provide dappled western shade and frame the view of the monumental chimney from the street," says the firm.
New front steps lead up to a front terrace.
Fittingly named the Courtyard House, the residence features a large outdoor space tucked underneath the cantilevered upper level, providing a quiet and shaded area for Lalita to enjoy her coffee breaks. Rotated masonry blocks extend from the courtyard wall to create succulent planters.
Ben and Luis sit by a fire in their side yard surrounded by a flourishing garden.
The rear of the garage and studio is fitted with a slatted screen, which creates unique shadows on the stairwell and inside the unit. The outdoor room also benefits from views of the lake and is anchored by a two-sided, white brick fireplace.
Emily and Mike created a small courtyard behind the office with custom concrete seating, a stone patio, and a mature tree as the focal point.
Before tackling the house, the couple converted the garage into a separate work space with a long, linear window that echoes that in the main house.
The couple planned out all of the exterior landscaping themselves. "[It was] painstaking, the time spent measuring," says Emily.
A small deck and a custom concrete planter complete the seating area off of the main bedroom.
They spent a couple months talking through ideas and sharing inspiration from Pinterest: Chris was looking for a muted, Australian-inspired sense of calm. In addition to a refurbished and more livable space, he requested a study, a guest bedroom and master suite, and a large indoor/outdoor space for grilling.
The Hourglass Corral is a four-bedroom, 3000-square-foot home that derives its tessellated form from the architects’ application of the Voronoi diagram.
The entire property consists of 90,000 square meters, or about 22 acres, on the island of Milos in Greece. Each of the five corrals are defined in the landscape by a white border.
Outside the family’s home, a stone circle reveals the site of the original cistern for the property’s olive grove.
In a 4,000-person village known for epic windsurfing vacations, Atelier Branco builds a striking courtyard home.
A green roof grows over the bedrooms on the roof deck.
The Pemberton Residence in Austin, Texas, was designed by local firm Alterstudio with inspiration from California modernist design.
The living room opens to the private, walled exterior courtyard at the front. “I really love the design of the courtyard and the fact that you can see it from everywhere in the house,” notes Fox. The ottoman is from Jardan and the outdoor chair is Hay.
Fox’s home design encompasses 2637 square feet across four levels, and includes a garage, an independent unit for guests, and two floors for her family of four.
“We took some pains to save the tree,” says Humble of the mature cherry tree that was preserved in the redevelopment. “We used it to focus all of our new openings.”
Claudine and Isaiah enjoy the view from the rooftop deck. “A place that provided a sense of serenity was huge for us, especially living in the city and with our busy lifestyle,” say the couple. “We wanted a place we can come home to and feel relaxed and at peace.”
The original front porch swing inspired the couple to add one at the back. “We wanted to figure out how to recreate that hangout space in the back, where the kitchen and dining room were,” says Dean.
The landscaping was intended to be as low-maintenance as possible for professionally touring musicians. (Though during the pandemic, obviously, there is plenty of time for yard work.) The little covered veranda could act as a mini stage for backyard acoustic shows in the future.
Reclaimed timber was used to built the shaded parking structure in the entrance area.
The rear patio was refreshed with new concrete pavers. A strip of grass accents the perimeter of the pool and hot tub. The boulders by the hedge are all that remain of a previous owner’s rock grotto, which Steve disassembled.
Landscape company The Backyard was hired to enhance the outdoor spaces. Voids in the overhanging roof partially frame the mountain in the distance.
The outdoor living room can accommodate anything from movie night to a morning work session.
The Ebels enjoy their outdoor area.
The Ebels have outdoor living and dining rooms. The Span Small table is composed of stone composite and natural fibers and designed by Mermelada Estudio, available at CB2.
In situ concrete planter beds filled with creepers and succulents expand the lush garden.
The wispy landscaping, also inspired by Hallová’s Florida roots, is by Lango Hansen.
"We wanted the pavilion to be freestanding and to have minimal columns, so using CLT, which can span a long distance without support, made sense,” explains resident Anyeley Hallová.
Tiered plantings embellish a courtyard that encloses a sunken portion of the front facade.
Dozens of slender steel rods, installed at arbitrary points, echo the grove of birch trees that sits behind the home.
Inside the enclosed front courtyard, a deck extends off main entrance. The exterior is covered in dark gray stucco, which contrasts with the deck cladding.
An outdoor area extends off the rear of the home.
Sliding glass doors open to the partially covered deck, which is made of Cumaru decking by Advantage Lumber.
In accordance with the urban plan by studio Space&Matter, all five piers of the community are interconnected, and neighbors get together to make plans for the plantings.
Transparent walls and Japanese design cues define this renovated home in an Austin suburb.
In its previous life, the courtyard was "an afterthought," sparsely outfitted with plastic furniture. "For us, it was an opportunity to do something special," says Rami Zeidan, CEO and founder of Life House.
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Whether it's a backyard patio, an infinity pool, or a rooftop terrace, these modern outdoor spaces add to the richness of daily life. Escape into nature, or get lost in city views. Wherever you are, let these outdoor photos take you somewhere new with inspirational ideas for yards, gardens, outdoor tubs and showers, patios, porches, and decks.