If the architectural design of a custom home is a reflection of the owner’s personal tastes and aspirations, then the home’s outdoor living spaces are a nod to their love of nature, need for relaxation and sheer enjoyment of the many features of their surroundings. Because for many Canadian and American home owners—whether in northerly regions where the summers seem all too short, or in warmer climes where a year-round connection to nature is easier to maintain—their outdoor living spaces are just as important as the ones inside.

David Small Design’ Natural Modern school directly acknowledges that connection. Our architectural design language ties a home’s interior and exterior spaces in exciting ways. Through extensive use of glass, natural materials such as stone and wood—along with intricate planning that accentuates a property’s topographical details—it creates a dynamic flow and energy that enhances a dwelling’s potential.

It’s an engaging way to turn sightlines, natural light and sweeping views into striking design features.

It also creates intriguing areas for owners and their families to live life and enjoy precious time together with loved ones and friends. There’s a reason why Natural Modern is often described as ‘lifestyle-friendly modern’ by architecture critics and our clients alike. It adds new layers of warm and inviting functionality.

But transforming an exterior space into an inviting oasis takes careful attention to detail and planning. It’s a process of considering how your family interacts, how you wish to engage with the outdoors and how that interplay can enhance the enjoyment of your home as a whole.

Thinking outside during the design phase

Many home owners focus the bulk of their attention on the exterior façade and interior spatial requirements of their home during the architectural design stage—and for obvious reasons. But from the earliest phases of the process, we recommend also envisioning how your future outdoor living spaces should be designed to suit your needs.

Doing so not only helps integrate outdoor and indoor living environments in a seamless way, but will also align your custom home wish list and budgetary realities. Creating an outdoor living room (or several enticing spaces purpose-built to maximize the enjoyment of your surroundings) can quickly inflate a construction budget—especially if major landscaping work is involved.

Perhaps your plan is to create a fully-equipped outdoor kitchen for summer barbecuing or even year-round cooking. Maybe you aim to integrate a pool with a surrounding deck or other elements such as a water feature. A fire pit area could be the perfect setting to take in the stars, particularly on cooler nights. A bar-lounge nook would allow you to watch sports or other events in the open air. Working with your interior design team, you may even choose outdoor lounge or dining furniture of a similar aesthetic to the furniture inside your house. The goal being to create a sense of unity and coherence between indoor and outdoor spaces.

Remember that additions such as these will have a significant impact on your final construction budget. Discussing them in the early stages of the design process not only affords your architectural designer the opportunity to ensure that angles, sightlines and even room positioning are ideally situated to capitalize on exterior elements, but can also allow for the kind of proactive planning that avoids costly re-work or expensive late-stage project additions.

Using a property to your advantage

Whether built on a slope, a lakeside or in a busy urban neighbourhood, it always makes sense to leverage a property’s natural features to create a truly unique outdoor space. For example, a hillside property could allow for a terrace system with multiple seating areas—one for dining, another for lounging and one to enjoy a soothing hot tub soak, for example. A large balcony could afford sweeping views of an expansive valley or nearby mountains.

Our Fairy Lake cottage project is a fine example of our Natural Modern aesthetic at work, while showcasing our use of a property’s natural features to enhance its form and function.

In that case, we took full advantage of the property’s natural slope to include features that framed extraordinary waterfront views, while creating multiple outdoor living spaces and establishing a clear connection to the dockside environment below. As we note in our Portfolio case study:

“This cottage shows how traditional massing can be combined with modern finishes to create a welcoming getaway. A classic gable roof design was elevated by exposed steel beams, floor-to-ceiling windows and modern glass railings. The Muskoka room—the three season covered living space—features a roll-down phantom screen and wood-burning fireplace.”

Even the home’s upper floor bathtub placement was carefully situated to offer serene waterfront views and create opportunities to relax and unwind. Pine-ceilinged, covered porches extended the indoor spaces to produce an elegant continuity of the natural material palette.

At the forefront

We often remind clients that outdoor spaces should never be an afterthought in the custom home design process.

These spaces could well be the ones where you and your family spend the bulk of your time when the weather permits—and sometimes even when the temperatures make a cozy blanket or a roaring outdoor fire a necessity. Take the time to imagine how you want to spend your outdoor time, then work with your architectural designer to bring that distinct vision to life.

The David Small Design Team

There are many components to personal identity. From our professions to our family structures—and dozens of characteristics in between—we define who we are by what we do and believe, but also where we live. The process of imagining and building a dream home is the ultimate expression of that individual identity. More than a structure, a home represents our ambitions and stylistic preferences. It’s as much an expression of who we are as what we strive to be. But the custom home experience—the process of taking an idea and turning it into a structure—is one that’s not always fully understood.

That’s likely because, when done right, it should be completely customized; it’s difficult to articulate because it’s always changing. In our view, the custom home experience should be highly personal and tailored to your needs. Building a dream home starts by understanding you, your family and your daily rhythms.

The Last House

Your home, your way

That means analyzing the way you live and what your home should aspire to achieve.

Consider the most important aspects of how your home should look and flow: Open concept or more compartmentalized. Modern or traditional. Spacious and elegant or smaller but with a highly functional design. A formal dining area or a more casual eating space that better suits your busy lifestyle. If you have young children, for example, wide-open spaces for play may well trump the desire for more formal eating or living areas. Perhaps a design that creates seamless integration between exterior and interior spaces for the summer months is your preference.

Town and Country

Your vision will not only be dictated by where you are in life today, but future considerations, such as grandchildren on the horizon or a potential home down-sizing in the near future. In the latter case, design decisions could be dictated by their ability to enhance the home’s eventual resale value. These are only a handful of the many points to weigh. Ultimately, the decisions will require a balance between your architectural ambitions and practical lifestyle considerations. Another key factor are the unique characteristics of your property.

A home in harmony with the surrounding landscape

All too often—especially in tightly-packed urban areas—the design of a custom home can be ill-suited to the property that it occupies. The design may be incongruent with the neighbourhood’s dominant architectural aesthetic, for example, or the home may be too large for the lot size, detracting from its overall design appeal. Sightlines, topography, existing foliage and landscaping should all be incorporated into the design discussion at the early planning stages.

The Lake House

Mid Century Upgrade

Then there’s what we call the “approvability” factor. In short, it speaks to the ability to get a design plan approved by the local municipality. While top architectural design firms will always push limits to meet client expectations, the good ones are quick to remind that sometimes design ambitions need tempering to satisfy local building regulations. Height and setback restrictions, sightlines, environmental considerations—especially if the property is located within a conservation area, as is the case with many cottage or ravine lots—are all considerations that factor into the administrative balancing act that determines the exact shape and exterior appearance of your dream home.

Dream big, but don’t fret the details

A common perception is that building a home involves arriving at an architectural designer’s door with a fully-formed idea for your future home’s layout. That’s not the case—or at least it shouldn’t be.

Setting yourself up for success in the custom home design journey means not having every decision made in advance. It means being willing to explore options and allowing your architectural designer to bring their creativity to the table. Thinking about your room requirements and preferred features is enough. It’s a designer’s job to understand which questions to ask as they work to learn about you, before translating those insights into the drawings that will eventually become your custom home.

What is essential is an exploration of design styles. At David Small Designs, for example, we ask our clients to find visuals of homes they love. Platforms such as Houzz, publications that deal with architecture and design such as Dezeen or Architectural Digest—among many others—and both Instagram and Pinterest, are a great place to start. By exploring visuals and narrowing in on details and features you’re drawn to, you can set the guide rails that steer your designer in the right direction.

The good news is that this is one of the most exciting and engaging aspects of the custom home experience. Immersing yourself in a new world, then entrusting your architectural designer to put their experience and expertise to work, is what makes the journey both worthwhile and fulfilling.

The David Small Design Team