Design Pattern: Outdoor Sofa

[each Design Pattern post attempts to decode the ‘recipe’ for a particular design, in words, much like Christopher Alexander’s Design Language, but using hyperlinks to create a network language rather than a hierarchy]

Outdoor sofas are often cream or white but can use bright primary colors to take advantage of sunlight or rich decorative patterns to evoke the atmosphere of a desert oasis. Their structure is from floors and walls rather than a furniture frame and so they are more like cushions in the landscape than a piece of furniture. The arrangement can be around an open fire and under the shade of a pergola or trees to create dappled light and an enclosed space or bare and open with a view onto the sea. Clean fabric in an outdoor setting colonises the space and makes an outdoor area more like a room.