Bliss is when indoors meets the outdoors

It is a blessing to live in the tropics. The weather is always perfect and the landscape is ever lush and beautiful. Almost everything grows bigger and better and the ever-present sun provides energy to enjoy it all-year-round. Unfortunately, many of our homes are designed to isolate the outdoors and all the goodness that comes with it.

That is not the case with the Kimanis’ residence in a Nairobi upmarket neighbourhood.

The home was designed to take full advantage of the great outdoors. The brief was simple: a house that feels like the garden and a garden that feels like the house.

Design approach

With a brief like that, the design approach had to be different from the typical procedure of getting an architect and a contractor to complete the house before thinking about the gardens and the outdoors.

The house and the garden had to be designed together.

As the architects laid out the rooms in the house, we simultaneously laid out the “rooms” in the garden. We strove to understand the activities inside the house and to extend these functions outside. The outcome is a functional garden that truly complements the interior spaces.

Blurring the lines

A lot of emphasis was put on establishing continuity between the house and the garden. This was achieved by creating deliberate relationships between the house and various features on the site.

For instance, a line of site was established from the lounge across the main patio to a water feature at the end of the back garden. A person sitting in the lounge feels like they are part of the garden because they can see and hear the water feature across the garden.

To further blur the line between the house and the garden, large patios and balconies interface every major indoor space and the garden.

These transition spaces are filled with elements from both inside and outside. They are lush with potted plants and cosy with comfortable seating and décor. Large glass doors and windows further reinforce the visual and physical connection between the indoors and outdoors.

Forms and materials

By taking cues from the architectural forms and materials, we were able to create a garden that truly belongs to and feels like part of the house.

The round form of the building was replicated in a series of retaining walls designed to manage the slopes and give the garden structure.

The ‘mazera’ cladding on the outer walls of the house was also used for garden paths and as cladding to the retaining walls themselves.

Similarly, some of the materials used in the interior spaces were “borrowed” from the garden. Loose river stone pebbles used around the water feature and as mulch in pots and planters found their way into the patios, lounge and even the main bath as part of the floor finishes.

Golden palm trees were used as specimen plants in the garden as well as indoor plants whenever the natural light levels allowed.

— The writer is a landscape architect

Photo: Hosea Omole/Standard