The landscape approach to this suburban garden responds to its setting – a sensitive restoration of the dwelling’s original façade, and considered architectural detailing. In this expressive garden, Overleaf Director Paul Smith offers a masterclass in using outdoor furniture to create calm, functional outdoor spaces for daily use and quiet retreat.
How have you used the furniture to support the brief for a ‘resolved and timeless garden’?
The garden was conceived around a restrained material palette, layered greenery, and a sense of quiet enclosure, a garden that would sit comfortably alongside a carefully restored home without straining for attention. The chosen pieces – Rockpool and Billy – share that design temperament. This is precisely what a resolved garden demands of its furniture: pieces that contribute to the whole without competing with it. The green Rockpool pieces in particular reinforce the planting palette rather than punctuating it, allowing the garden to read as a single, cohesive composition.
Waterside inspiration
How do the various pieces help create a sense of calm and quiet retreat?
The garden was designed to be genuinely lived in, for everyday use, not just occasional entertaining. The Rockpool sofa and armchair make that possible by offering a proper, comfortable destination within the garden: somewhere to sit with a coffee in the morning, read through the afternoon, or wind down at the end of the day. The compact dimensions and curved steel structures offer comfort and invite you to stay without requiring any occasion to do so. The Billy lounger extends that functionality by providing a secondary seating option, flexible enough to pull into the main grouping when needed, or to sit apart as a quieter, more solitary spot within the garden. Together with the scattered occasional tables, these pieces allow the outdoor space to be used the way a well-furnished interior room would be, with different moods and moments accommodated across the day.
Discover Rockpool
How do they help define space, or provide sculptural focus in the outdoor areas?
The Rockpool grouping creates a clear living zone within the garden, giving it the legibility of a room without enclosing it. Modest and elegant, the refined details of the furniture read quietly sculptural against a backdrop of foliage without introducing visual noise. The Billy armchair, with its distinct metal frame, introduces a counterpoint, a lighter, more upright presence that can mark the edge of a space or anchor a secondary seating moment without requiring a full arrangement around it. Together, the pieces work at two scales: from inside the home through glass, they read as composed focal points within the garden. From within the garden itself, they define where to settle and how to inhabit the space, turning a series of outdoor areas into places to gather and enjoy the surrounding garden.
Discover Billy
In this expressive garden, Overleaf Director Paul Smith offers a masterclass in using outdoor furniture to create calm, functional outdoor spaces for daily use and quiet retreat.
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