All Photos/outdoor/locations : side yard/fences, walls : wire/patio, porch, deck : large/fences, walls : horizontal

Outdoor Side Yard Wire Fences, Walls Large Patio, Porch, Deck Horizontal Fences, Walls Design Photos and Ideas

The back garden is a perfect metaphor for what the couple hoped to achieve with their project. "We feel a part of the city, but there’s still this sense of privacy," says Ali.

"You can see [with] this building how the design is in the small details and at the urban scale," says Cynthia.

Architect Kengo Kuma designed a floating, transparent structure supported by very thin steel columns. Transparency was a common design goal for the entire project.

Inspired by the surrounding landscape of chestnut trees, rocky hillside, and bubbling stream, Portuguese architecture firm 3r Ernesto Pereira chose to blend into, and take advantage of, the local geography rather than fight against it at this sleek, modern home near the coastal city of Porto. At a cost of €100,000 (approximately $125,000) and measuring about 140 square meters, this stunning, wood-and-glass retreat took about four months to construct.

Multiple outdoor living spaces and a wraparound deck emphasize indoor/outdoor living.

The exterior decks are made of silicon-modified pine from OrganoWood.

Elevated on steel posts, the central volume and exterior deck project west toward the sea.