Design 101 - Space Design for an Outdoor Dining Room

Ramon Esteve de Estudio Arquitectura

When faced with a bare deck or patio it is sometimes difficult to visualize how to break the space up into different outdoor ‘rooms’.  I am a function over form kind of girl when it comes to design so I always start looking at a space with function in mind.

Art Luna GardenTo position an outdoor dining area, start by looking at the layout of your outdoor space in relation to the interior layout of your house.  Where is the kitchen?  Is there a corresponding outdoor space?  If so, make that your outdoor dining area.  Unless you have a fully stocked and functional outdoor kitchen you will likely be splitting your time between the kitchen and the outdoor dining space as you prepare the meal and clean-up so you will want quick and easy access to both spaces.  With this layout you also get a pleasing repeating pattern of furnishings when you look from the kitchen to the outdoor space and vice versa.

For the placement of outdoor dining furniture keep the following space requirements in mind:
Serving path & chair space - 3 ft. 8 in.
Passage & chair space - 3 ft.
Table width per person - 2 ft.

Desire to InspireI happen to love to do scale drawings of furniture layouts; it’s a great way to determine whether furnishings will fit before buying or moving them.  Scale rulers and graph paper aren’t for everyone however.  For those of you who want to stand in the space and move things around I like the newspaper trick.  Take your read newspaper and tape together the pages to make the corresponding sizes of your furniture.  It’s much easier to move around the newspaper version of your furniture than the real thing.

Photo Resources
Ramon Esteve Estudio de Arquitectura
Art Luna Garden
Desire to Inspire