RESORT MODE

Intentional planting and textural finishes set the scene for a holiday at home in a contemporary coastal Sydney backyard.

- Eliza O'Hare

It was a big brief for a small garden, but landscape designer Adam Robinson has become a bit of a master when it comes to delivering maximum impact and leisure in small urban spaces. He’s clever because he understands that the luxury of big Australian backyards is fast disappearing across our cities, so creating smart, smaller gardens is surely the way of the future. This beachside Sydney garden was designed for a family of three – very much a grown-up space. “The family love entertaining so they wanted a crossflow between their interior dining space, the courtyard and the bar in the converted garage.”

The big question was, if you live this close to the beach, do you actually even need a pool? Adam was pro-pool from the start. “I was like, ‘look, you pop down to the beach in the morning for a swim, enjoy that space, and then you come home for lunch. If you have a pool, you’ll hang around the house for the rest of the day in your swimmers’,” he says. “It makes being at home quite different if you’ve got that body of water in the backyard – your behaviour shifts and you go straight into holiday mode.”

But a full-sized pool in this tiny space didn’t make sense. “Once you put a pool fence in there it just cuts an already small space up into silly dimensions.”