Problem
A garden is the place for lying in the grass, swinging, croquet, growing flowers, throwing a ball for the dog. But there is another way of being outdoors: and its needs are not met by the garden at all.
Solution
Build a place outdoors which has so much enclosure round it, that it takes on the feeling of a room, even though it is open to the sky. To do this, define it at the corners with columns, perhaps roof it partially with a trellis or a sliding canvas roof, and create “walls” around it, with fences, sitting walls, screens, hedges, or the exterior walls of the building itself.
Related Patterns
… every building has rooms where people stay and live and talk together - Common Areas at the Heart (129), Farmhouse Kitchen (139), Sequence of Sitting Spaces (142). Whenever possible, these rooms need to be embellished by a further “room” outdoors. This kind of outdoor room also helps to form a part of any Public Outdoor Room (69), Half-Hidden Garden (111), Private Terrace on the Street (140), or Sunny Place (161).
This outdoor room is formed, most often, by free standing columns - Column Place (226), walls - Garden Wall (173), low Sitting Wall (243), perhaps a trellis overhead - Trellised Walk (174), or a translucent canvas awning - Canvas Roofs (244), and a ground surface which helps to provide Connection to the Earth (168). Like any other room, for its construction start with The Shape of Indoor Space (191) and Structure Follows Social Spaces (205) …
Alexander, Christopher. A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction. Oxford University Press, 1977, p. 764.