Outdoor living spaces can extend the footprint of a home and connect people with nature, which studies have shown help reduce anxiety and improve overall mental health.
Homeowners don’t have to be outside to enjoy the outdoors. Innovative design firms like Texas-based Lake | Flato — which has won numerous national awards for creating functional interplay between structures and landscapes — can create designs to seamlessly blend the two spaces.
Extend Roofs to Create Outdoor Rooms. When it comes to extending roofs, he recommends a simple strategy: “The bigger the better.” A long overhang or cantilevered roof can foster a sense of enclosure without shutting the outdoor “room” off from nature.
Use the same materials indoors and outdoors. Consider installing cladding from an exterior wall through to an interior wall. Flat wall claddings, like several of the Artisan siding profiles found in the Aspyre Collection by James Hardie, have a sleek aesthetic that transitions well from the outdoors to the indoors.
Widen windows and doors. Big sliding glass doors, exterior sliding pocket doors, and sliding screen doors also build a natural cooling system into the home, allowing owners to turn off the AC and let more fresh air in.
Avoid competition between outside and in. To avoid pitting indoor and outdoor spaces against each other, keep in mind how the outdoor space itself may impact the view from indoors. As much as possible, give indoor and outdoor spaces their own unobstructed views. One way is to design outdoor seating areas to the side of doors and windows, so that outdoor furniture doesn’t distract from indoor views.
Analysis
I believe that using indoor patters, textures, and history can be good way to make an outdoor space feel more cohesive with the area and indoors. While the location of our project is strictly an outdoor plot of land, there are still many things from this article that can be applied. Using the history and the interiors of the surrounding businesses, especially the National Aviation Heritage Area, could really connect anything in the lot to the area.
https://www.aia.org/articles/6171536-four-strategies-for-blending-indoor-and-ou
