The owners of this medium-sized rear garden, located in the heart of the Chiltern Hills, Buckinghamshire, were looking to reinvent their outdoor space with a contemporary design featuring clean lines to enhance the modern style of the house. The objective was to transform the garden into a multi-functional space with dedicated areas for work, relaxation and children's play. A major challenge was to resolve and retain a significant drop in ground levels on the rear boundary between the client's garden and that of the neighbour. This was particularly important as a new garden office was to be located in the far right corner to the shared boundary.
A new porcelain paved patio was created large enough to perform double-duty for family lounging and relaxation as well as a time-out spot from work. The cedar-clad modern garden office, measuring 5mx 3m, features a green sedum roof to blend the building with its environs. The adjacent cedar trellis fence panels complement the garden office and are fitted with outdoor speakers to complete the outside entertainment zone. A dedicated space for a barbecue and pizza oven is positioned within easy reach of the main seating area and the house.
The existing side access path required updating to provide a welcome/reception area for the client's home-based hairdressing business, effectively creating an outdoor waiting room. Large stepping stones in gravel are softened by evergreen perennials and hedging to separate this area from the main family area. Elsewhere in the garden bold, exotic-style planting featuring low-maintenance grasses, bamboos and Acers were chosen to complement the client's existing garden statuary.
It was important that the play area was as discrete as possible and did not dominate the overall clean, modern garden style. The open plan play area features a sunken trampoline that sits unobtrusively alongside the main patio. When no longer required the trampoline pit will be backfilled and the space returned to lawn with no visual impact on the cohesion of the garden plan.