This family wanted a private, shaded living space outdoors that overlooked a play area for their daughters. There was an existing covered deck just off the back porch, but it wasn't quite the right scale and the path interrupted the seating arrangement. We like to move spaces further off of the house to activate more of the yard instead of continuing to stack it, so we proposed a poured-in-place concrete patio that bleeds into the covered area. This faces a leveled lawn area for unprogrammed play. 

​

The challenge of many houses in this neighborhood is that they have large drainage easements in the backyards, disallowing built work that may disrupt stormwater flow. Instead of a highly engineered solution that performs a single function of directing water, we opted for Low-Impact Development (LID) techniques that slow down velocity to encourage water to permeate the ground plane on site, which reduces the overall flow to the neighborhood retention pond. Plants' root systems also encourage water permeation and filter the first flush of pollutants out of stormwater. We saw this as a chance to create a natural play area, where the young children can explore the dry creek bed, hopping from boulders or picking flowers.

 

One more way we made this sloped yard usable was with the steel grate catwalk. It  crosses the dry creek bed and leads to a steel frame that houses a swing, but is constructed to support multiple types of outdoor furniture.

 

This project won Best Site Work in the Austin Home Magazine's 2025 Home & Design Awards. We call the project Perching Pergola.