Studio Thadian Pillai

'How can we thank you enough?  We just love our courtyard more and more.  Thadian, I want to sleep in my garden now...' - Marilyn B

The garden can be as much a place of dwelling as any house or interior.  This courtyard garden adjoins the kitchen and dining room of an historic town house.  Conceived as an outdoor room, it extends the interiors spatially and visually through surface material, form and colour.   Exposing historic brickwork and stone garden architecture, and displaying objects significant to its owners, the courtyard unites the past with the present, and is a cache of meaning and memory. 

The space is essentially a social one for immediate family and friends.  Furniture has been selected that allows the courtyard to be used in multiple ways depending on the time of year, the time of day, or the nature of an occasion.  The furniture’s transparency, tracery and reflection allow views through or beyond it, making the limited space feel generous. 

A garden does not 'end' at nightfall.  This courtyard functions as a vessel for light, its materials and surfaces designed to gently reflect it.  Evening lighting creates a range of moods, transforming the space from one in which to celebrate with friends, to one for quiet contemplation.