The current synthetic deck is disintegrating, there’s not enough space for a table, and some excitement in the landscape will be welcome. This solution removes a major stairway (there’s an alternate path), clears out tall vegetation near the house and terraces the slope to extend the patio area, adding a (very) contemporary shade structure, a tree, a seat wall (part of the terracing) and a water feature.
The house is already painted blue and orange, so using orange laser-cut panels on the shade structure is a possibility. At this point, the structure could also support grape vines on cables and use laser-cut panels instead of the trellis screen for privacy – in which case they’d probably be rusty corten instead of orange. Due to setbacks and the house’s 60° angle, the structure fits best as a triangle, adding a bit of drama to the overhead space.
As people move away from the house, the feel changes to a more garden-like series of terraces. A shade tree welcomes people to sit on the wall where they can enjoy water sounds. Planting will be water conserving, heat and frost tolerant since this site is in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. To ensure adequate growing conditions, the tree is planted in soil covered in crushed rock so its roots will receive air and water required for growth.
People arrive in the space via a stepped path that replaces a large stairway leading directly down from the driveway – a stairway that would have been very visible from the patio spaces once existing screen plants were removed. Direct views are filtered by plants or by a trellis screen attached to the structure.
The final result will be a pleasant dining patio at the same level as the kitchen, a much more useable solution than dropping nine feet to the back yard level.
This project started with a rough sketch that was refined over many iterations, then transferred to the CAD system and modeled in 3D. We set the shadows for the Sacramento region on a July afternoon to check shading patterns.