Design Experts Share Ideas for Orchestrating Gorgeous, Seamless Transitions Between Indoors and Out
To help mitigate the less desirable elements of nature, designers are fielding an increasing number of requests for spaces that freely open to the outside while offering all the comforts of indoors
Warmer weather incites a craving for more time outdoors, whether that’s by the pool, in the garden, or around a table under the stars. Yet rain, wind, bugs, and even too much sun can quickly ruin any al fresco delights. To help mitigate the less desirable elements of nature, designers are fielding an increasing number of requests for spaces that freely open to the outside while offering all the comforts of indoors. “A room like this just transports you,” says architect Thomas A. Kligerman. “You get the same feeling at your own house that you might get sitting on a lanai in Maui or a loggia in Tuscany.”
Whether off a salon, a dining area, or a kitchen, an artfully appointed terrace can extend a home’s living area in a multitude of ways. “This becomes a place people can read the paper in the morning with their coffee,” says designer Stewart Manger, “or they can have a cocktail at night.”
Place Settings
The location of an outdoor room can be just as varied as its aesthetic. In Malibu, Suzanne Tucker added a bucolic courtyard with olive, lemon, and kumquat trees and crushed stone at the entrance. Jamie Bush, who is currently working on an estate in the Los Angeles Bird Streets neighborhood, leans more to a central enclosure. “When you get these really big footprints, you don’t get a lot of daylight in the middle of the house,” he says. “That courtyard is another device that breaks down the spaces and makes the house feel alive.”
Advancements in door designs have opened the field, but often architecture and aesthetics guide whether to choose French doors, sliders, accordion, or the favored pocket style. “I find accordions to be cumbersome,” says Bush. “When they stack, they jut out in a space, which feels messy to me.”
In rebuilding a home lost in the Woolsey Fire, Sophie Goineau created a terrace that nearly doubled the total livable square footage, using durable materials like concrete and Corten. “I think the future is having barely any walls and movable furniture so you can have freedom to rearrange or recompose whenever you want,” she says.
Get the Look
Smooth Operator
Keeping flooring flush and with a “seamless visual transition,” says Manger, can further enhance the indoor-outdoor flow. He often uses a more refined version of an exterior material like bluestone throughout, while Bush might pair a beige stone outside with a white oak interior floor.
The evolution of performance fabrics by companies such as Perennials, Kravet, and Quadrille has changed the game as furnishings can have the look and feel of pieces intended for the indoors yet withstand the elements. And shades, sheers, or even exterior louvers—for example, the ones Kligerman installed at a coastal retreat—diffuse sun through expanses of glass. “I like to do a woven wood shade or woven mesh where when it’s down, the light is dappled,” says designer Jay Jeffers. “I’m of the school that if seeing the outdoors makes you happy, then let the sun come in.”
Get the Look
Set Dressing
For a truly integrated indoor-outdoor experience, designers often keep the furniture plan consistent. “One should naturally flow to the other with both color and materiality,” says Tucker. “The furnishings should be just as carefully considered with a well-thought-out floor plan that takes into account the various access points and activities.”
While updates to materials elevate weather-resistant furnishings to a luxurious degree, conditions can still wreak unexpected havoc. At a private retreat in the Dominican Republic, Philip Vergeylen and Paolo Moschino specifically chose pieces made of rattan, bath fixtures of brushed steel, and card lamp shades—things able to withstand the humidity—as well as artwork more suited to the climate.
“There’s a large collection of porcelain, which is perfectly fine to use there, and bronzes, marble statues, coromandel screens. There is not a single oil painting,” Vergeylen says. “In the Caribbean, people want to experience the outside, even when they’re inside. What gives me the biggest joy is how that translates to beauty without pretension.”
Get the Look
A version of this article first appeared in print in our 2025 Summer Issue under the headline “Wide Open.” Subscribe to the magazine.