Designing for evenings

A garden designed only for daylight is a garden you use for about a third of the time you are actually at home. The three things that change that are shelter, fire and light — in that order of importance, and usually in the reverse order of how much they get budgeted.

Shelter comes first

Nobody sits outside in wind. Not with a fire, not with heaters, not with the best lighting scheme ever installed. Before anything else, work out the prevailing direction and either sink the space below grade, screen it with planting, or roof it.

On Twilight Fire Court we dropped the seating area 900mm below the surrounding ground. That single move did more for winter usability than every other decision combined.

Fire is the anchor, not the heater

A fire feature is a focal point that happens to give off warmth. Judged as a heating appliance it is inefficient; judged as the thing that makes people gather and stay, it is unmatched.

Two practical notes. Site it so the prevailing wind carries smoke away from seating — this is the mistake we are asked to fix most often. And build the seating in: fixed seating at the right radius means the space works with two people or twelve.

Light everything except the space itself

The instinct is to light the terrace. It is exactly wrong. Illuminating the surface people are sitting on flattens the space and blows out everyone's night vision, so the garden beyond disappears into black.

Light the boundaries instead. Graze the walls, uplight three or four trees, wash the planting at the far end. The terrace reads as bright because everything around it is lit, and the garden keeps its depth after dark.

Keep every fitting at low output and shield the source. If you can see the lamp, it is too bright. Twenty-two well-aimed low-voltage fittings will always beat six floodlights.

The test

A garden that works in the evening is one where, at nine o'clock in October, nobody suggests going in.