Outdoor summer trends

When the climate zone is favourable, the boundary between inside and outside becomes more and more indefinite, thanks to open walls and sliding curtains. This lack of characterization of the spaces supports informal and constantly evolving lifestyles. On the other hand, when the house keeps its perimeter intact, nature enters the home. This goes beyond the mere decorative nature of a potted plant: nature creates a demineralized space, where the coexistence with vegetation imposes itself as a new, reassuring normality.

How to create a curtain capable of mediating between the inside and the outside of a building, regulating the degree of osmosis through a new volumetry? To fulfil this membrane-like function, metal reinforcements where to hang curtains that allow to adjust the shade and the view, or soft straws that stretch out towards the garden, create new spaces for resting, relaxing, or waiting.

Multiplied greenery obtained thanks to an unexpected mirrored wall, in a renewed dialogue with the surrounding vegetation. All this can be found in a house in Madrid, where the Spanish studio delaVegaCanolasso designed an extension capable of camouflaging itself among the thick vegetation, multiplying its green reflections and renewing our desire to connect with plants, even if only through a clever deception.

The view of the sky is certainly the most underestimated among all the views architecture can create. To overcome this carelessness and create a relationship with an exceptional natural context, some projects choose large circular openings in the ceiling as a way to emphasize verticality, creating a direct communication with the stars.

Where it is not possible to indulge in the privilege of enjoying outdoor spaces in the city, greenhouses and herbariums invade the domestic interiors. The multiplication of greenery takes place thanks to large structures that exceed the ambition to contribute to food production, which is still cumbersome compared to much easier ways to obtain fruit and vegetables. Rather, the premise seems to be that of inserting a simulacrum of vegetation, not yet officially aimed at purifying air, but capable of inducing a positive feeling of holistic well-being.

Having some privacy when living in shared home environments is an ever-growing psychological need. This is why the primordial charm of the hammock - with its suspended rocking, but also its enveloping nature, almost like a curtain - is renewed in very private and confined spaces, often obtained from external resulting spaces, in full visual continuity with the house, but protected from prying eyes.

Respect the proliferation of the third landscape, incorporating the new architecture into the pre-existing spontaneous greenery, but also make use of mobile furniture that, without asking permission, anarchically invade the street and roofs. Nature and construction exchange roles, each occupying the space of the other, in yet another case of fluidity that once again tells of our desire to break the clear boundaries between public and private, nature and inhabited space.

The charm of the fire is celebrated with an outdoor furniture that captures an archetypal essence: UMO, a fire pit made of volcanic rock, envelops the flames while turning into a ritual object that draws to meditation.

The new temporary structures in open spaces take the form of a mobile tent to be revisited with creative impulse. With multiple drapes, it gives life to installations that impose themselves for the rhythmic characterization of space. Again, the tent lives again in provocative and ironic forms, such as those of a dwelling-slash-dress. In the glamping version, it is an accomplice of comfort in the form of a tensile structure with sculptural features.

Opening image: The Godown di Ling Hao Architects a Kuala Lumpur. Photo Fabian Ong.