Covered outdoor lounge featuring a Louvretec pergola, outdoor fireplace and a timber feature screen, designed for year-round entertaining.

Samuel Moore, owner of Consilium Hortus, is renowned for creating beautiful, bespoke outdoor spaces which are designed specifically to meet his client’s tastes. Taking inspiration from landscapes, architecture, art, design and nature, Samuel meets briefs and creates stunning projects in gardens and spaces of all sizes. This recent project in Colchester, Essex, had a brief to create a fully equipped outdoor entertaining area. With a desire for an extension of their home, Samuel has created a space that can be enjoyed throughout the seasons. A louvered pergola covers the full length of the back of the house. Despite being a permanent structural cover, the roof, which can turn 160 degrees, enables the sun to be chased as it moves throughout the day. Heaters and lights have been incorporated for those colder months, so those chillier days and evenings can still be spent outdoors. The slatted feature wall, not only matches the extended outdoor table but also provides a backdrop for the Outdoor Kitchen drawing out its Iroko Hardwood details. For a couple who love to entertain, it was obvious that a trio of cooking appliances needed to be incorporated into the outdoor kitchen design. Featuring our Gusto, the Bull BBQ and the Deli Vita Pizza Oven, the pair and their guests are spoilt for choice when it comes to alfresco dining. The addition of our single outdoor fridge also ensures that glasses are never empty, whatever the tipple.

Rafael Gamo

A pretty detached Georgian House (c1830) with delightful gardens and terraces with southerly views over Dartmouth and beyond. Colin Cadle Photography, Photo Styling Jan Cadle

This penthouse apartment situated in the heart of the capitol demanded a stunning and inviting roof garden to really give the client a stunning outside space in the ultimate Urban setting. Working with the Landscaper, we helped develop this amazing covered seating pergola. The design incorporated an extruded aluminium framework with motorised aluminium louvres to give the client shade control but to give the space weather protection. We then included remote operated LED perimeter lighting within the roof along with an integrated heater.

Built-in bbq with polished concrete bench top and sides, timber batten base. In channel glass pool fence. Tiled pool surrounds with Timber decking. Covered with a mechanical louvred shade structure. Large format stepping stones as access through lawn area. Photos by Natalie Hunfalvay

Jours & Nuits © 2017 Houzz

Jessica Shepherd Photography

Deck with transparent roof sheeting provides a nestled spot to enjoy the garden. Photo by Tatjana Plitt.

Under a fully automated bio-climatic pergola, a dining area and outdoor kitchen have been created on a raised composite deck. The kitchen is fully equipped with SubZero Wolf appliances, outdoor pizza oven, warming drawer, barbecue and sink, with a granite worktop. Heaters and screens help to keep the party going into the evening, as well as lights incorporated into the pergola, whose slats can open and close electronically. A decorative screen creates an enhanced backdrop and ties into the pattern on the 'decorative rug' around the firebowl.

Diesel's House started with a very simple brief for a "U-shaped" house to provide privacy from neighbouring houses, bring the outdoors in, and have the informality, quirkiness and fun of a 1960's beach house. By wrapping the house around a courtyard on three sides and having a covered deck to the north, all rooms open onto a private outdoor green space. Views expand across the courtyard to the back yard and sky making spaces feel very generous. The house captures sea breezes in Summer and the sun in Winter; the occupants are comfortably connected to the time of day, the seasons and their environment. Passive solar design, natural ventilation supplemented by ceiling fans, solar energy and rainwater capture, and reuse of building materials all act to reduce environmental footprint. Diesel's house demonstrates that a suburban house in a subtropical climate does not have to be "heavy" on the environment.

Photography: Derek Swalwell

Luis Turrens -arquitecto-