Along with its durability, concrete requires very little maintenance.

The large patio leads to a newly landscaped back garden. An expansive glass wall promotes seamless indoor-outdoor living. Inexpensive brick pavers were chosen for the rear patio; they offer textural contrast with the steel of the door, brick of the rear facade, and pale gray wood of the interior floors.

Yang Yeo and his girlfriend Ching Ian relax on the back stoop of their renovated and radically updated Singapore shophouse—an archetypal building type in this busy port city. “Shophouses brought back memories of our childhood,” says Yeo.

Mandel designed a six-by-eight-foot extension for additional space on the ground floor.

“We were concerned that by elevating the first floor by six feet, we would be detaching the living space from the neighborhood,” Mitchell says. “Thus, we have an elevated exterior patio off of the rear that overlooks the sidewalk and brings the living space to the outdoors.”

It's traditional among homes in the region to enter through their backdoor, seen here. The door leads directly to the living room.

Though the front of this 1880s home in Adelaide, Australia, maintains a traditional facade due to strict heritage laws, the rear is modern eye candy at its best. See more of the home.

In fall, the color of this backyard in Charlottesville, Virginia, changes daily with the foliage. Elizabeth Birdsall marvels how new outdoor spaces on her property, like a patio furnished with upholstered seating from Gloster, make enjoying the woods an easy experience: “It’s like comfortable camping, all the time.”

Known for furniture and interior design, Ezequiel Farca transformed a 1970s-style concrete home in Mexico City into a tranquil sanctuary. The temple-like retreat blends into the hilly Lomas de Chapultepec neighborhood with its pale gray-green hue and strategic plantings, which soften the boundaries between house, garden, and street. The Recinto lava stone patio accessed through the living room holds teak outdoor furniture designed by Farca himself.

Monory’s friends, the Leclercs, join her for an alfresco meal on the patio. They’re seated at a custom-made table on Fermob’s Luxembourg chairs.

Looking back on the home from the concrete patio, its verticality becomes apparent. The zinc, cedar, and glass extension erupts from the base of the old brick envelope—diminutive but disruptive.

An important aspect of the home’s design is the seamless flow between inside and outside, which is enhanced not only by large windows and doors, but also by the home’s materials. The majority of the surfaces and structural elements in both the interior and exterior are composed of concrete, stainless steel, and wood, ensuring a unification between the two while guaranteeing durability. Concrete floors require little maintenance, while local wood helps the home blend into its surrounding landscape.

“The program of enclosures was developed around a courtyard that is protected from the constant wind. The transparency of the main facade brings the presence of the sea inside the house,” LLaumett says.

The small, angular guesthouse that architect Todd Saunders designed for Steinar Jørgensen is defined by a patio that appears to sit in a cutaway in the spruce-clad volume. The red PS VÅGÖ chair is from Ikea.

A second green roof is planted with sedum and plays host to one of the family’s favorite spots: a hammock. Bentheim suggested adding a trellis overhead to soften and balance the appearance of the facade.

The semi-outdoor space extends the living room outward. Inside, a layer of glass sliding doors further facilitate breezes. The occupants can enjoy the sound and smell of rain behind shelter.

Taking cues from this home's Japanese-influenced slatted screen, Hufft Projects applied a ring of ipe wood around the perimeter of this outdoor fire pit.

Prentiss + Balance + Wickline Architects' created both public and private outdoor spaces in Chechaquo Cabin. A second-floor rear deck is propped up on the graded slope to host a secluded spot for a hot tub.

On his patio are a table and chairs from the 1968 Ozoo collection by Marc Berthier for Roche Bobois.

A picnic table in a matching hue to the Stealth Barn rests between the two structures.

Each of the four units has a private patio.

Shannon and his wife, Amy, take the air on a small patio in two Acapulco chairs.

Roof deck

A maple tree grows through an ipe deck in this garden that Mary Barensfeld designed for a family in Berkeley, California. A reflecting pool separates it from a granite patio, which is furnished with a Petal dining table by Richard Schultz and chairs by Mario Bellini. The 1,150-square-foot garden serves as an elegant transition from the couple’s 1964 Japanese-style town house to a small, elevated terrace with views of San Francisco Bay. Filigreed Cor-Ten steel fence screens—perforated with a water-jet cutter to cast dappled shadows on a bench and the ground below—and zigzagging board-formed concrete retaining walls are examples.

Speaking to his original design, architect Saul Zaik says, “We were really just building boxes with a bunch of windows but experimenting with how you integrated indoor and outdoor spaces.” The house has seven different openings to the exterior, allowing different courtyard or patio settings for a range of outdoor activities, including seating for a gathering on the street-facing side. The Milfords hired Lilyvilla Gardens for the landscaping around the house, including variegated bluestone steps with thyme joints.

With the home’s glass walls pulled open, the patio and fire pit become an extension of the dining room.

A stepped concrete garden planted with herbs and flowers marks the descent to the house. The courtyard is the focal point of the U-shaped structure; there is clear visibility between the kitchen on one side and the children's bedrooms on the other.

At night, opening the entire top floor is a breeze. Russell-Clarke and Moolsintong are even planning of rigging some kind of sail over the back patio for shade. The hot tub is by Roberts Hot Tubs.

They installed water-saving artificial grass on their patio for pup Moxy to enjoy.

Translucent fiberglass panel walls form a permeable, fiber-reinforced plastic membrane between indoors and out.

The patio at the front of the house offers a view of the balcony that connects the second-floor bedrooms.

A picnic table from Janus et Cie sits off the kitchen; the landscape architecture is by Richard D. Wood. In addition to passive solar, says Hawkins, “there is the added benefit of a thick concrete slab as a thermal mass that absorbs and stores the heat from the sun.”

The architects wrapped the glazing around the corner of the living room to bring the landscape inside. The open-web trusses run continuously from indoors to out. A fleet of Modernica furnishings complement a Prototype Boomerang chair by Richard Neutra, a custom Moufelt industrial felt rug, and Circa50 butterfly chairs.

Moreland House

On the rooftop deck is an outdoor fireplace clad in cement board panels, plus a custom wych elm table by Arnold d’Epagnier and Charles Outdoor sofas by B&B Italia.