Designing a Garden Around a New Extension

The moment a house is extended, its relationship with the garden changes completely. New glazing turns the landscape into a permanent interior view, and internal floor levels dictate what the terrace outside must do.

The commonest and most expensive mistake is setting the finished floor level without considering the ground outside. You then need either an awkward step at the threshold, or a retaining structure and drainage strategy that was never budgeted for.

Bringing landscape design in alongside the architect allows terrace levels, drainage falls, threshold details, external lighting circuits and service routes to be coordinated once rather than reworked twice.

It also lets the garden respond to the architecture properly — aligning terrace joints with structural bays, setting planting to frame rather than block the view, and choosing external materials that sit comfortably against the internal floor.