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All Photos/outdoor/patio, porch, deck : decomposed granite

Outdoor Decomposed Granite Patio, Porch, Deck Design Photos and Ideas

Red- and blue-pigmented cement augments the color palette of the courtyard.
The fire pit area displays a 48-inch concrete fire bowl, woven chairs, and upcycled tree stumps for kid-friendly-seating.
Richie walks through the shared plaza between the main house and ADU.
Kuo transformed the original back house and attached garage using playful geometries and creative uses of space.
In the family's porch, a natural reed canopy provides protection from the sun. The grounds are covered with gravel.
The backyard is a protected retreat out of the wind. The team added a balcony off the kitchen at the third floor. It has a ship’s ladder to access the roof deck, in order to service solar panels installed there. The balcony also has a grill for cooking al-fresco. “You gotta be able to go out back and barbecue – this is the beach after all,” says Levy.
The new design is intensely personal. "We don’t do anything by halves," Jessamy says. "This is our legacy." Hunter notes the grace with which the couple handled the aftermath of the fire and resulting redesign. "It was very emotional to lose a business and then have the scrutiny of a community with so many opinions. Jess and Jake were very gracious throughout the process."
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.
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.
Landscape company The Backyard was hired to enhance the outdoor spaces. Voids in the overhanging roof partially frame the mountain in the distance.
"The pool breaks from the O-shaped plan, drawing you out into the desert toward the mountain views to the south, and is capped by a built-in fire pit bench," say the architects.
Chen and Guang worked with Shenshan Landscape Design on the courtyard. "Material is the key point in landscape design," says Liu.
“The whole building experience was tough, because of the financial strain and because we moved in before the house was completely finished. But now that we’re on the other side, everything was so worth it,” notes Clint.
A roof terrace with built-in seating and a large grill looks out to Table Mountain and the surrounding city. “I’m very much into braaiing,” says Clint, using the Afrikaans word for barbecue, “and wanted a place to grill. Michael took that to the next level and gave us a place where we could barbecue on the roof.”
Clara spent most of her renovation efforts on the backyard, transforming it into her vision of an English countryside.
“The height of the new extension has been kept low, while still keeping all interior spaces on one level,” says the firm. “This approach led us to establish the project’s design identity in detail and materiality rather than in a ‘grand architectural gesture.’"
The new brick-and-wood pavilion faces north for optimal sun exposure.
Whitney designed a living wall with a large round mirror for the side garden, where the rescue beagles nap in the sunlight.
West plays on the steps that carry the family members from the bedroom to the rear garden.
If you already have a projector, white sheets and some popcorn are all you need to create your own outdoor cinema. Alternatively, you can set up a backyard screening with a monitor, TV stand, and an extension cord.
"The H-shaped plan and outbuildings create an assemblage of forms that celebrates the site and creates a continuing sense of surprise," Epstein adds.
A gravel trail winds through greenery into the entryway of the home, reinforcing the parklike nature of the site.
Carstensen landscaped the backyard and added a simple fire pit circle with chairs. He updated the deck, replacing the vertical posts with screens to create a more open feeling.
Situated amid the forest in Rhinebeck, New York, the geometric, eco-friendly Ex of In House by architect Steven Holl stars a large window capable of heating the living space with sunlight during the winter months. In the summer, a shade ensures it keeps cool. In accordance with the home’s sustainable mission, the interiors are finished with natural oiled wood and plywood, and all light fixtures were 3D-printed in PLA cornstarch-based plastic.
The house is broken up so that the natural site flows through the courtyard, which has a fire pit and a hot tub.
Garden Patio with Cedar Hot Tub
In the rear courtyard, Steve spent three days demolishing a rock grotto, which had been installed in the 1970s, with a jackhammer. Its boulders found new life as hardscaping near the pool. “I’m glad we could repurpose those boulders,” Jessy says, “I hate adding to landfill.”
The walls are painted Behr’s "Polar Bear," and the artwork is by Arnold Réthy. The firm painted the ceiling beams running throughout "Space Black" by Behr. "Painting the beams in a darker color emphasized that they run from front to back," says the firm. "This came back to celebrating the timeless, indoor/outdoor experience that continues to drive demand for renovated Eichlers."
The VDL Pavilion is open to nature, with no glass walls. Vertical fins provide shading along one wall.
Designed by Choeff Levy Fischman, this home in Miami Beach emphasizes transparency, views, indoor/outdoor living, and entertaining. A critical component of this is an atrium in the center of the residence, which creates an outdoor seating area while still inside the home.
A rendering of Kanye West's housing development is brutalist in form and muted in color.
Backyard
Cedar soaking tub and fire pit at night
“We had these incredible live oak trees, and so we built the house around the trees and the view,” says Raike.
The Olmos Park Residence sits in an established neighborhood in San Antonio. Heavy limestone walls screen neighbors on both sides, while the fourth side opens up to a verdant flood basin.
The small swimming pool is a serene place to enjoy sunset views.
The enclosed garden features lovely landscaping and has the feeling of a serene escape.
The 1908 greenhouse from the Lyndsay Mansion has been repurposed into a dining pavilion. During the restoration, it was revealed that Soriano had perfectly arranged the home to line up with the original greenhouse.
The repurposed and restored open-air dining pavilion provides guests with a lush backdrop.
A border hedge provides privacy for the backyard, where distant views of the San Jacinto mountains can be appreciated.
ONE@Tokyo in Tokyo, Japan
"This home is intended as both a place of refuge and of play," says Emily Summers Design Associates.
Glass walls surround a courtyard, sunken so as to provide respite from the wind. Landscape elements encourage interplay with the outdoors.
After cleaning up the landscape, the team custom-made a few benches for the backyard and added gravel from Penn’s Stone Supply. The string lights and West Elm Planters add a stylish touch.
The interior courtyard is one of the best rooms in the house, embracing daylight and shadows. Originally designed to hold a tree at the center, the courtyard now includes a fire pit.
The guest house plays with the concept of using stone for decorative purposes. Pujatti deconstructed the “normal” style of building and separated the stones from the concrete.
A Cuadra San Cristóbal courtyard surrounded by vibrant pink walls.
Concrete pavers line the outdoor entry space. The roof is Duro-Last mechanically fastened single-ply membrane.
The exterior of the Crawford Studiolo is made of Inax porcelain mosaic tile and Brampton Brick concrete blocks.
A striped hammock is perfectly placed for relaxing and taking in the sunset.
Tom's House was designed by Anna-Marie Chin with the surrounding landscape in mind. A soaking tub sits a few paces down the slope, capturing stunning views of the surrounding mountains.
In Sonoma, California, a historic farmhouse receives a contemporary makeover. Large sliding doors allow for seamless indoor-outdoor connection.
For the landscape and redesigned pool area, Terremoto kept “their movies simple and elemental,” matching the subtractive approach taken in the house. The firm collaborated with Farnham on the design of the long-span pergola, which is cleverly engineered to only need four support posts.
The home is elegantly set into its surroundings and overlooks a serene garden patio with a koi pond.
The facade of the cottage beautifully blends both past and present.
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