Exterior Worlds does much more than design gardens that beautify the Houston landscape.  We actually create garden accommodations that can work as focal points for outdoor events and family entertainment.  The intention is to integrate human activity into carefully cultivated organic forms that are decoratively enhanced with selective ornamentation, patio design, and outdoor lighting.

Outdoor garden seating then becomes the main point of attraction to your next outdoor event.  It creates accommodation in the lighted green space—a sense of special space framed against the natural backdrop of trees, outdoor architecture, and the neighboring forms of the Houston landscape and nighttime sky.

Any type of garden style can be developed with human accommodation in mind.  This is no real challenge to the experienced landscape designer.  Outdoor garden seating can be installed in any type of garden.  The real challenge lies not in the style of the garden itself, but rather in accurately anticipating the number of people that will ultimately be attending events that are hosted in that space.

In many neighborhoods such as Memorial, Rivercrest, and River Oaks, outdoor garden seating ultimately proves the very heart and soul of both the Houston landscape and the Houston outdoor living experience.  It becomes the generative force of emotion that hosts create for guests.  Beautiful gardens in these neighborhoods are essential to the creation of special moments and defining memories. 

It is therefore of ultimate importance for us always to keep the perspective of future guests in mind when designing a seating arrangement.   We need to think about where people will actually be sitting, and what they will actually be seeing.

We also need to think about how people enter and exit the garden, and we need to make sure that these entrances and exits help people conveniently move freely to and from the garden as they explore other areas of interest within the yard.  

While this is a popular form of Houston landscape design in the wealthiest neighborhoods around our city, outdoor garden seating can be created in any Houston area yard of any size.   Even a small lot with a curved linear path can be ornamented with adjacent linear garden and comfortable seats.  

Outdoor garden seating also often installed near water elements.  The most common of these elements is the swimming pool.  Because gardens are very frequently planted next to pools, we will often create places to sit within the garden itself so that people are not limited to seating on the patio alone.

Sitting in front of a lighted fountain is also a popular pastime for Houston residents.  Lighted fountains create special focal points for charm, romance, ambience, and conversation, and they lend a very unique, multi-dimensional presence to the greenery and color of shrubs, grasses, trees, and flowers.

In some senses of the term, we could see outdoor garden seating a rudimentary type of outdoor room.  However, we are very careful to allow only the garden itself to create the sense of intimacy and enclosure we are aiming for. 

True outdoor room design requires a bit more than this.  It involves building either organic or inorganic wall elements, and it also sometimes requires the construction of ceilings in the forms of actual outdoor buildings.