Ideas Library · Outdoor Structures

Outdoor Structure Ideas

A pergola, a bin store, a carport and a garden room are all buildings, however small, and they behave like buildings: they need foundations, they shed water somewhere, they cast shade, and they change how the ground around them is used. These ideas treat the structure itself as the subject.

Nothing here is a built project, a recommendation or professional advice. What may be built, how close to a boundary, and on what foundation depends on your site, local requirements and the judgement of qualified professionals.

22 ideas in this category

Ideas in this category

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Each idea is an educational planning direction and a set of questions to confirm with qualified professionals.

Arbour as a Gateway →A thin structure you walk through rather than sit in, placed at the single opening in a divider, compressing the route briefly so the space beyond opens.

Store Within the Boundary →Instead of a freestanding store parked in the frontage, thicken the boundary locally so the store is the thickness and the frontage keeps one continuous line.

Carport as Pavilion →Treating car shelter as an open post-and-beam frame over hardstanding, so the parked car sits inside a garden structure rather than beside a box.

Covered Walkway →An idea for roofing the route between a house and a garden building while leaving it open-sided, and treating the division it makes in the garden as the design.

Building on the Boundary →Setting a structure against the boundary releases the garden, but the boundary face becomes unreachable and must be detailed as a self-finished blind wall.

Expressed Plinth Base →A direction for lifting a garden building on a visible base course of heavier material, so cladding never meets soil and the base reads as deliberate.

The Roof as Fifth Elevation →When a structure sits below upper-storey windows, its roof is its main elevation, and the covering should be chosen for how it reads from above.

A Wall That Folds Away →Make one full-width elevation openable so the same structure is a sheltered room in summer and a secure store in winter, a switchable relationship to weather.

Workshop Lit From Above →Take daylight through rooflights or a clerestory so all four walls stay free for benching and racking, which also lets the building sit tight to a boundary.

Lean-To Glasshouse →Building the growing structure against a sunny masonry wall so the wall is one of its four sides and its night-time heat store, which fixes its position.

Log Store as Screen →An open-backed, through-draughted frame whose infill is the fuel itself, used as a permeable screen that changes density and colour as the stack is drawn down.

A Structure That Can Move →Selecting a structure on skids, wheels or a demountable frame rather than a foundation changes siting, services and what the boundary question even is.

Pavilion With a Solid Side →Build three sides open and one solid, so that core takes the weather, braces the frame, holds the store and services, and gives everything inside a back.

Outbuilding Palette →Pick one of three positions for an outbuilding's palette and carry that single decision consistently through roof, cladding, joinery colour and base course.

Outdoor Shower Enclosure →A small roofless wet structure with three screened sides, a free-draining floor and a dry changing half, so the plan splits wet from dry.

Pergola as a Spatial Frame →Build the frame with little or no roofing, so posts give a terrace walls in the air and beams give it a ceiling height. Enclosure is the purpose, not shade.

Play Structure in a Bank →Cut the platform and slide into an existing or made slope so apparent height comes from the ground rather than from posts, and less stands above the lawn.

Pool House With Plant Room →Give one small structure two halves: changing and shelter on the pool side, ventilated plant space at the back, so the equipment is not a second, later object.

Shed and Work Yard →Size the enclosed store small and give it an equal area of hard, drained bench space outside, so messy work happens in the open and the shed only stores.

Rainwater Store as Structure →The tank becomes the structure's plinth, side wall or bench rather than a barrel beside it, collecting from the roof directly above and doing spatial work too.

Structure Ending a View →Siting a small building precisely on the garden's principal sightline so it becomes the full stop, which fixes its position by the view rather than by the sun.

Two Buildings, Not One →Where the brief wants one large volume, build two smaller ones with a gap between. Apparent bulk halves, a view through survives, and the gap becomes shelter.

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