As the weather brightens and our focus naturally turns towards the outdoors, we’ve taken a look back through the ELLE Decoration archives to highlight some inspirational homes that show how to bring the outside in.
Sustainability and a focus on the garden were key to this house design
‘We wanted the relationship between inside and outside to be very fluid,’ says architect Andrew Burges, who transformed this 1930s semi-detatched house in a Sydney suburb near Bondi Beach. With the collaboration of the owner, a landscape designer, Burges was keen to explore the idea of a continuous garden that exists in balance with the main living space in this arid setting.
A retreat designed for chilled summer vibes
Sarah Crook could see the potential in the awkward layout of this villa when scouting for a summer property in Ibiza. She re-imagined the former garage into a summer living area and a downstairs bedroom into a hall space, giving views through the house to the rambling garden beyond. It’s an architectural change that has transformed the villa into a laid back summer holiday home.
What's everyone reading?
The forest hideaway that connects with nature
It was the desire to escape from their busy city lives that attracted the creative couple behind interior design firm Nicemakers to this secluded 1960s bungalow in the Veluwe forest, just an hour from Amsterdam.
To be immersed in nature was a priority for their new home. ‘The way the sunlight fell through the trees, the bird calls and the scents, it was enchanting,’ recalls Dax Roll. The couple were inspired by the mid-century era’s thinking on design – simplicity, functionality and clean lines, and created an airy open-plan home surrounded by ‘framed’ natural views, with the colours and fragrance of the forest filling their home. ‘It has given us a place to rest,’ they say.
Blending traditional with modern to highlight the garden vista
This traditional Victorian villa in Melbourne had the addition of an elegant glass extension designed by interior architecture practice Studio Tate to act as an inviting central space for family living. The floor-to-ceiling steel-framed windows created an airy feel and offered a strong connection to nature with views over the garden.
A home to fill your senses
‘The house is the perfect pit stop for its environment, its panoramic views really call you out,’ enthuses Ben Goram, founder of the Byredo fragrance brand, when talking about his modern beach retreat on the Swedish island of Gotland. ‘There is a really incredible natural scent to this place. Almost all of the doors are open most of the time – there is the salt of the sea, the freshness of the greenery,’
The design of this home highlights the Island’s stunningly wild landscapes, the floor to ceiling windows and doors offering panoramic views, and the natural wood clad exterior, aged to a silvery finish, blends with the natural environment beyond. ‘The consistent thing about the days here,’ he observes, ‘is the overwhelming sense of calm that comes from the house and the island.’
Creating a leafy and light-filled dwelling inside a former industrial building
This conversion in a turn-of-the-century industrial building in Melbourne is a constantly evolving canvas, but at its centre is a light-filled home that draws the outside in to create an airy verdant space. Owner and interior designer Mardi Ola was initially drawn to the building because of the nearby green spaces of the Botanic Gardens and leafy parks. But major building was needed, including reconfiguring windows and doors to allow the natural light to flood in and for her passion for plants to flourish.
Futuristic modernist home updated for modern living
This iconic 1950s house designed by Californian modernist John Lautner in Silverlake, Los Angeles is where he built the first ever infinity pool and introduced vast curved glass walls that opened onto terraces and gardens to create a continuous indoor/outdoor space. After the home was purchased in 2014, work began to sensitively renovate this iconic building to update it for 21st-century living. The result is a stunning family home, with the addition of some of Lautner’s original plans, not realised at the time, but completed more than 60 years later.
Childhood summers in Ibiza informed the aesthetic of this modern home
When commissioned to build a family home perched on a hillside on the eastern side of Ibiza, Studio Urquiola wanted to design something that could be gently integrated into the surroundings. The home they created consists of two buildings linked by outdoor spaces that trace the contours of the landscape.
‘The architecture has no straight corners on the outside,’ says Patricia Urquiola founder of the studio, ‘it’s totally white and the materials used are simple’. The finished result is a modern take on a traditional Ibizan whitewashed country house with different level terraces and rooftop chill-out spaces that take in the unique light of the island and its 360-degree views of land and sea.
Views of the ocean inspired the design of this Long Island home
Cantilevered above the sand dunes of Napeague Beach in the Hamptons is the home of designers George Yabu and Glenn Pushelberg. ‘The relationship between the inside and outside is very important to us,’ offers Pushelberg. This is manifested in the blurred boundaries between the interior and landscape beyond. Simple wood cladding and louvres allow the space to blend into its surroundings with sliding doors, that when opened, capture the ocean breezes. A home that has been built to inspire.
Nature and sustainability are at the heart of this extraordinary home
This is a groundbreaking carbon-positive home designed for living in balance with the environment, whilst also creating an impressive space that connects to the landscape. ‘We had to be bold in our choices’ says its interior Designer Jase Sullivan, offering that Mondrian was the starting point for the design of the ‘stained glass’ windows that surround the home and the greenhouse-like structure to create a unique inside /outside area.
Water, also a key element to this home, flows from the entrance into a natural swimming pool that runs along the living spaces. ‘It is one of the closest connections to nature I’ve ever felt in a property,’ remarks Sullivan.
