David Domoney Case Study: Designing and Living with a Modern, Stylish Contemporary Garden
1 July 2024
design a stylish and minimalist contemporary garden with Pavestone’s Monviso paving
When planning your dream garden, settling on a design style is a crucial first step. Modern and contemporary styles are very popular right now, and as well being very stylish, they are also low maintenance and very adaptable.
Curious about how to create a stunning, low-maintenance, contemporary style garden? This month in my blog, I reveal how Pavestone’s Monviso paving can effortlessly transform your outdoor space.
Embrace Contemporary
Minimalism and modernism often go hand-in-hand, seamlessly blending to create stunning contemporary gardens. Imagine a garden where a neutral color palette graces the paved areas and furniture, where clean lines and simple structures enhance the space. By limiting the variety of materials used, you can achieve a cohesive and elegant look. Discover the intriguing connections between minimalism and modernism, and how they can transform your garden into a serene, stylish retreat.
Designing a contemporary garden revolves around simplicity and clean lines. Embrace straight edges to create harmonious, organised spaces within the garden. Use the natural shapes of paving slabs, architectural pergolas, raised beds, straight-edged borders, and integrated bench seats. Every element should contribute to the sleek and modern look that will transform your garden into a stylish and serene outdoor sanctuary.
Monviso porcelain paving
This garden beautifully showcases Pavestone’s Monviso porcelain paving, utilising straight lines to achieve a sleek, modern look. The neutral cloud-grey paving creates a striking contrast against the natural tones of wooden fencing and lush green lawn. The clean lines between the paving and the lawn embody the essence of contemporary design.
The neutral colour serves as an ideal canvas for your modern garden, offering a cohesive element that ties the space together. The light grey shade not only breaks up the greens and browns but also brightens the entire area, adding an uplifting and airy feel.
The Ultimate Versatile Garden
A modern garden should cater to all your outdoor needs, and this garden accomplishes that beautifully. Thoughtfully designed for entertaining, it features two distinct zones that harmonises perfectly within the available space. Each area is meticulously curated to create cohesive, functional areas ideal for hosting gatherings and enjoying the moments.
Serene Patio Retreat
The cosy armchair and bistro-style nook just outside the patio doors offers a charming setting for intimate dinners, morning coffee with pastries, or simply unwinding with a good book. Vibrant red and green Phormiums beautifully break up the space between the lawn and the patio, infusing a splash of colour while maintaining the elegant theme of straight lines. This delightful area enhances the garden's inviting atmosphere, making it a perfect spot for both relaxation and dining.
Al Fresco Dining
Creating a dedicated area for cooking and dining has become a hallmark of modern garden design, as outdoor entertaining becomes evermore popular each year in the UK.
Built-in kitchen units offer an effortless way to enjoy year-round culinary adventures in your garden. The dining area, here being sheltered by a sleek charcoal pergola, in keeping with the contemporary style and ensuring the outdoor space can be enjoyed in any weather. The design of this area integrates seamlessly with the rest of the garden, featuring a stylish rattan dining set that adds a touch of contemporary elegance. The rattan set pairs perfectly also with the cosy bistro nook, enhancing the garden's inviting aesthetic.
Fire pit Gatherings
Imagine a cooler summer evening spent gathered around a charming small stone fire pit in a secluded area of the garden. A wooden bench, seamlessly built into the raised bed area, perfectly aligns with the garden's squared edges and straight lines, offering a tranquil retreat, blending effortlessly into the wider modern design.
The warm tones of the wood beautifully complement the fencing backdrop, maintaining a cohesive colour palette that avoids any sense of coldness. This thoughtful integration creates an inviting ambiance, perfect for enjoying the crackling fire and the company of friends and family in a stylish, contemporary setting.
Effortless Elegance and Colour
The main structures of contemporary and modern gardens typically adhere to a refined, limited colour palette, predominantly featuring neutral hues such as light and dark greys, crisp whites, and warm browns. This garden exemplifies that aesthetic beautifully. However, within this elegant framework, your planting scheme can introduce vibrant splashes of colour, effortlessly drawing interest and adding a dynamic, refreshing touch to the space. These lively hues not only enhance the garden’s visual appeal but also create a harmonious balance between sophistication and natural beauty.
A balance of refreshing foliage from plants such as Phormiums, Chamaerops humilis, and tall Euonymus japonicus fills in a lot of the space, each adding different structural elements to raised beds and planting areas, which can then be broken up with bright sparks of different colours.
Container plants can also add colour without changing the bedding structure of the garden, with vibrant blooms from vivid ornamental Fuchsia plants creating different focal points across the garden to enjoy from the various seating areas.
Jon Layton, Group CEO of Pavestone:
The talented team behind this stunning garden are Village Landscapes. Renowned for their expertise, these professional installers excel at creating breathtaking results as demonstrated using our Monviso porcelain paving range. As highlighted in David’s insightful blog, using neutral-colored paving can provide a perfect canvas for a modern garden to flourish. This garden serves as a brilliant showcase of how our products can be utilised to achieve a beautiful, polished design. It’s a testament to the harmonious blend of Village Landscapes’ craftsmanship and the versatility of our Monviso paving, resulting in this truly spectacular outdoor space.
We have hundreds of stunning videos, depicting beautifully landscaped gardens, which have used Pavestone landscaping and building materials to realise homeowners 'dream gardens'. Set yourself some time to explore these videos and maybe make some plans for your garden makeover?
David Domoney, TV gardener, horticultural expert and Pavestone brand ambassador blogs monthly on the Pavestone website on all things landscaping related. We look forward to seeing you back again next month.