The Green Room
An outdoor room that does not close for winter
The clients had spent two winters looking at a garden they could not use and one summer being looked at by their neighbours. They wanted both problems solved without turning the plot into a walled box.
Privacy from planting rather than masonry keeps a small north-facing garden light. The roof is what makes it a room.
★★★★★
“We had Christmas lunch out there. In the rain. That still surprises us.”
The challenge
Overlooked on three sides
The garden was overlooked by two neighbouring second floors and open to a shared boundary. The clients wanted genuine privacy without building a wall that would darken a north-facing plot, and use through the wet months.
Our solution
Enclose with green, roof with louvres
A 2.4-metre hornbeam hedge on a raised bed gives privacy at eye level while staying light and permeable. Inside it, a louvered aluminium roof opens fully in summer and closes to a sealed ceiling in rain, over porcelain paving with an outdoor fireplace on the sheltered wall.
Project results
- 12 mo
- of year-round use
- 2.4 m
- of living privacy screening
- 0
- solid boundary walls added
- 13 wk
- from design sign-off to handover
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