Have you ever asked yourself what the outdoors means to you? And by outdoors, I don’t mean “the Great Outdoors,” like Mt. Everest or the Pacific Ocean or countless other of earth’s component features. I mean the outdoors you used to spill into at recess when you were a kid; the one the buildings kept you out of; the one that hit you the minute the door opened; you know – the OUT DOORS.
After years of practicing landscape architecture, I’ve slowly realized that while we all move through the outside world, we bring with those processions an array of different sensibilities and varying awareness of its features. Even more, we impose our own expectations and aesthetic priorities while there, and this greatly affects our experience of being outside. Obvious, right? Yes, at a certain level, but the ramifications of those divergent perspectives are vast. Let’s not forget that the only reason we have an outdoors is because someone made an INDOORS. Until then, the outdoors went without saying - it was just the place we lived. And yet of course we slowly developed shelter to protect us, and shelters became architecture, and architecture became engineering or vice versa, and together they became art, and on and on. And so now we’ve all come to the outdoors from different indoor places, whether we grew up in a high rise or a bungalow or an A-frame or log cabin, and those indoor places have helped define our view of the outdoors.
But there’s more to it than that. When it comes to using and designing the outdoor spaces connected to your home, your approach will be defined by your past - the style in which you grew up, cultural ideas passed down to you from your inner and outer circles - as well as by your present - the way your days are organized, your predilections and practical requirements, and those of any others you share space with. While we may frequently take them for granted, a review of our own unspoken ideas about what our personal outdoors should do and represent is a worthy jumping-off point for any endeavor to improve it.
Consider my architect friend who grew up in New England and makes a living crafting simple, well-proportioned indoor spaces. He’s always seemed baffled by the idea that architecture would be a requirement of the outdoors. It’s as if, in his mind, the very purpose of architecture is to build a place out of the outdoors and so by definition the outdoors is the place without architecture. But that’s not to say he doesn’t love the outdoors. In fact, most would label him a “great outdoorsman” because he is constantly OUTSIDE: he runs dozens of marathons a year, skis from hut to hut in the wildest of winter places, paddles raging rivers and choppy surf, skates on frozen ponds and asphalt parking lots, and generally has done more outside than most of us will ever do in a lifetime. And, yes, he’s even applied his architectural expertise to some small outdoor spaces adjacent to his buildings. For him, though, a patio is almost an obligatory gesture, and a table with a few chairs is plenty of embellishment for such. His outdoors, it seems, is an active engagement in places untouched by the built world – a place to go out into and return from. For the most part, you’re in or you’re out.
Another friend of mine, a salesman, is the son of an architect. He confessed to me that when first visiting our house he would chuckle at the various “arranged scenes” of bistro table and chairs here, steamer loungers there and Adirondacks over in the corner, as if the whole place were a series of theatrical sets with the purpose of engaging in each of the programmed activities they implied. He’d seen it before, he said: “My dad used to do that all the time.” And it’s true, programming space is exactly what architects do. A few years later, we helped him design a patio with a sitting area out of the wind but oriented so that he could catch the dying light of the sunset while drinking a beer after work and watching his kids play on the swing set and at the basketball hoop that the patio extended into. And we added soft night lighting to extend that experience beyond nature’s darkness and into seasons that it might not otherwise occur - for the night, as we know, presents itself differently during the year while our working lives quite frequently do not. So for him, the outdoors was an extension of his day; a place where his return to the family could wash over him, but not contain him as the walls of his office or the doors of his car had for so many hours prior.
A third friend, also a client, asked for help after relocating from the suburban Bay Area to a mildly less suburban swath of 5 acres in Washington state that cascaded down a hill to its western edge, a meandering stream rich with visuals not much changed from pioneering days. The outdoors was integral to his life and he wanted the home he had purchased to embrace the acreage to which it had been assigned, for building and landscape to work together much as Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello had. He wanted an estate. For him, the outdoors was as much a part of his spatial footprint as a trip from kitchen to bathroom to bedroom, and so a walk to the boathouse required as much consideration as a journey through the main hallway, and the run of the horse fencing must address every tree through which it rambled with proper angles, and so on. Even more, the programmed activities were functional - not solely leisure spaces - and so required proper outfitting. The boat washing station should drain properly lest the cherry tree’s roots in the swale suffer eternal damp distress. And the flower garden, so beautiful yet so contrived, must properly engage the contrasting beauty of the wild stream beyond. In the end, from the minute his driveway gates swung open you were meant to be given a sense of arrival, as if you’d just come through the front door. His place began with the outdoors.
So, what does it mean to you? What is your outdoors? And just as important, how did you get to it? A worthy series of questions, I think, to which thoughtful answers can bring a strong sense of purpose at your own property.
DJ