Connecticut Home & Garden

The best way to design an outdoor room is to think of it as you would an indoor room that is, with a floor, four walls and a ceiling, "even if it's the wide open sky," says Tara Vincenta, owner of Artemis Landscape Architects in Brookfield. Vincenta knows what makes a beatiful outdoor room, having won two awards from the American Society of Landscape Architects in 2008. She sugests you ask yourself some key questions about your space before getting into the details:

How will you use it... for dining, relaxing, alittle of both?

Is the area an extension of your house?

What's unique or special about the site?

Decide if your outdoor room's boundaries will be natural such as plantings or a pond or built, Like masinry walls, fences and outbuildings. Add dimensin by grading the landscape to vary your "floor" level. Let tree canopies and pergolas serve as your ceiling. Finally, chouse plantings designed to add scent, color and texture..

The room at the right, a visual extension of a contemporary shoreline house, encourages dining, entertaining and relaxing both day and night. The "walls" are the house (not shown), trees and edges. The pond, adesignated wetland that coudn't be altered, is a boundary and focal point. Chinese granite, Japanese riverstone set in concrete, and mohogany decking all form an arresting circle-in-square pattern on the "floor".

A white magnolia tree furthers an all-white planting theme, and the defining white corner columns cast and eye-catching glow at night. Vincenta says she strives for function, beauty and sustainability in all of her outfdoor spaces..

Artemis Landscape Architects, Brookfield:
(203) 740-7979