Photographs of this villa are almost always taken at dusk, which is not an accident of scheduling. The terrace, the pool and the planting were laid out around how the place behaves once the sun has gone and the lighting takes over.
Where the exterior fittings are, and more usefully, where they are not.
Context and Materiality
In this climate the garden is unusable for a good part of the day, so the hours that matter run from late afternoon into the night. The plan treats the pool terrace as the main outdoor room rather than as a feature to be looked at from indoors. Lounge seating sits at the far end, away from the house, so that anyone using it is looking back at a lit facade instead of out at a dark boundary wall. The pool is edged in a pale stone that holds light well after dark, which keeps the shape of the terrace legible once the sky has gone.
Interior Atmosphere
Almost none of the exterior lighting points at the house. Low bollards mark the planting bed and the path, the pool is lit from inside, and the terrace picks up spill from the glazing rather than from downlights overhead. So the building reads as a lantern and the garden reads as the darker room around it. The deep overhangs, which are there for shade at midday, do a second job at night by keeping the source of the interior light out of view - you see the glow on the soffit, not the fitting making it.
Published in Press • May 2026
