Living with Nature
A conversation with Jason Harris, CEO of UDesign, about the architectural element of nature and why we should incorporate it into our homes.
Article by Vivion O’Kelly. Images courtesy of UDesign.
UDesign was established at the start of the Great Recession with a carpentry shop, two designers and a carpenter. Since then, it has grown to become one of the most successful architecture and interior design firms in Southern Europe, gaining international recognition, designing and building projects all over the world and collecting the kinds of awards that some firms take many decades to achieve. Along the way, it never veered from the basic design philosophy of its founders, and given that most UDesign houses have been built in warm climates, a key part of this philosophy is the concept of inside/outside living. Or to put it another way, living with nature.
This means bringing the garden into the house. Not just that, but designing the house from the very start so that it can seamlessly incorporate a garden or elements of a garden within the structure of the house. “We like to bring nature right inside, into the living areas, the kitchen and even the bedrooms,” says Jason Harris, CEO and Creative Director of UDesign. “For us the integration of nature into living spaces is the key to architectural and interior design excellence. Sometimes, it is the garden that inspires the entire design of the house, because you don’t fight nature - you work with it.”
The idea, as Jason is quick to point out, is neither unique nor their own. They simply found a new way of using it. “In fact, the Japanese have been doing it for centuries. Zen is essentially meditation, and the meditation of nature plays an important part of it. A classic Zen garden may not be to everybody’s taste, but we took the idea and refined it to suit contemporary taste, incorporating elements of the traditional Moorish cortijo, such as water and interior courtyards, into it as well. Like a Japanese garden, it must be created with great care to achieve the right balance between nature and the manmade, without which the result would be unsatisfactory.”
Although the designer’s task is basically visual, the question of well-being cannot be ignored, as many city planners in the world are now beginning to understand. “We cannot live without nature”, says Jason. “You see what city planners are doing in all the great cities of the world. New York’s Greenways are a great example, especially the High Line, where nature is brought right into the heart of the metropolitan area. It not only looks good but is good in ways that were not fully appreciated in the past. Our overall well-being depends largely on our closeness to the natural world, and the architecture we do has reflected this from the beginning. All our designs, even in a project in London’s Eton Square, feature natural surroundings to some extent, by bringing the inside out or the outside in, or both. In a way, we don’t just design houses or gardens, but garden houses. We try not to make the distinction.”
How it works in practice is a question of design skill. It’s not easy, unless you believe a few potted plants strewn around a well-furnished room, or a fountain in a courtyard, will do the job. “Big rooms in big houses were traditionally decorated with large pieces of furniture, nice paintings on the walls, large mirrors and so on. Designers used lots of materials of different kinds, and they tended to leave out the most important of all, which is living nature. A tree, for example, is a piece of living sculpture, and a beautifully designed water feature is a piece of living art. A rock in the right place becomes a work of sculpture, if it has the right size, shape, texture and colour to enhance its surroundings. An architect or interior designer is an artist who works without using paintbrushes on canvas, and at UDesign we decided to use much of the raw materials supplied by nature.”
“Our Garden Villa is a good example to take, and the reason we chose such a name for it. The plot had no great exterior views, so we internalised the views by creating a magnificent garden. Nature was an essential element in the whole design project, the inspiration for the house itself. And our Olive Tree Suite is another excellent example of how nature can be brought right into the most intimate parts of a house. We took an olive tree and designed a bedroom around it, the result being a 75-year-old olive tree sitting in the centre of a master suite, acting as a room divider between the bed and the walk-in wardrobe, but more importantly, becoming a chunk of nature – a few square metres of the outside space – right beside the bed. One can lie in bed and watch the rain falling without getting wet, and night-time illumination turns it into an extraordinary spectacle of nature itself. A spectacle that talks directly to the soul.”
There are many ways of bringing nature inside. Interior courtyards, green walls, indoor plants and trees, water features, sliding walls of glass that soften the line between inside and out, cantilevered ceilings that are difficult to identify as either inside or outside structures, swimming pool and garden areas reaching far into the interiors: it all adds up to a complete architectural entity that makes life really worth living.
“And finally, we must not forget the wonderful scents of nature”, say Jason. “The beautiful fragrances wafting through a house. The lavender, the jasmine, the exquisite Dama de Noche we here in Southern Spain are so familiar with. Furniture only goes so far in interior design, and we put a great deal of thought into how we use it, but for us, nature itself is a timeless and priceless architectural element that will never go out of fashion.”
Architecture & Interior Design by UDesign: https://www.udesign.es/
UDesign are an award-winning architecture and interior design company established in Marbella since 2008. You can visit their showroom in the San Pedro industrial estate Monday to Friday 9am-6pm. P.I. San Pedro, C/Países Bajos 6, San Pedro de Alcántara (Marbella) Spain Tel: (+34) 952 794 117