✨ Interior images are AI-generated. Items shown are similar to those in the video.

Contemporáneo Nocturno

Side passage with a reflecting pool and bamboo shadows on the wall

This is the side passage of a house, that narrow strip where the bins and the air-conditioning unit usually end up. Here it's been turned into a water garden, and the most interesting part isn't the waterfall: it's that the far wall carries nothing at all and is still what you look at most. What decorates it is the bamboo's shadow, thrown by a spot at the foot of the pot. The wall has been used as a screen rather than as something to hang things on.

Paso lateralLámina de aguaMuro de aguaSombra proyectadaBambúHelechosEmpotrables pisablesPiedra oscuraPorcelánico grisAnochecer

Design keys

The house's side passage turned into a water garden, with the pool taking almost the full available width.
A dark stone wall with water running down it in irregular rivulets, lit from the base.
A shallow reflecting pool working as a mirror, with the fall at one end so as not to break it entirely.
The bamboo's shadow thrown onto the plain far wall: the wall is decorated with light rather than objects.
Walkover recessed lights spread across the paving, marking the route without lighting the water.
Dark planters against dark stone, of which only the plant's silhouette reads.

Furniture and decor in this design

Items shown are similar to those in the video, not necessarily identical.

Dark natural stone slab cladding

Dark stone slabs with an irregular face and pronounced joints, for cladding the wall the water runs down. Unlike stacked stone, here the piece is flat and large: the water doesn't fall as a curtain but spreads into rivulets along the joints and the surface's unevenness, which is what creates the pattern. Seal it before turning the water on, because permanently wet stone picks up limescale and green growth very fast.

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Narrow-beam garden spot for shadow projection

An adjustable projector with a narrow beam, fifteen or twenty-four degrees, to place at the foot of a plant and throw its shadow against a wall. What you're buying here is the angle rather than the output: a wide beam lights the whole plant and blurs the shadow, while a narrow one cuts it out. Choose a spiked model with spare cable, because the final position is only found by testing at night.

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Hardy outdoor fern

An outdoor fern such as Dryopteris or Polystichum, which takes the winter outside and doesn't want sun. It's the plant that solves a side passage, because that strip is the shadiest part of the house and almost nothing else thrives there. Use a substrate that holds some moisture and don't leave it in a small pot: in a draughty passage a small container dries out sooner than you'd expect despite the shade.

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Outdoor planter with a water reservoir

A pot with a reservoir in the base and a wick or grid carrying water up to the substrate. In a side passage it solves the real problem, which isn't drought but forgetfulness: it's the part of the house you walk through without looking, and pots there are always the last to be watered. Check the reservoir's capacity in litres rather than in days, because days depend on the plant and the season.

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Dusk sensor for garden lighting

A weatherproof photocell that switches the circuit on at dusk and off at dawn, without depending on a fixed schedule. Against a timer, the advantage is that it adjusts itself through the year: a timer set in June leaves the garden dark for two hours in December. Mount it facing north and away from any of your own fittings, or the sensor sees its own light and starts cycling on and off.

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How to get this look at home

The far wall carries nothing and is still what you look at most, because what decorates it is the bamboo's shadow. A spot at the foot of an open-leaved plant turns a blank surface into the garden's most interesting element, and it costs whatever the spot costs.
The shadow grows the closer the spot is to the plant and the further away the wall. Test it with a torch before recessing anything: moving the fitting twenty centimetres changes the shadow's size completely.
The reflecting pool is there to reflect and the waterfall breaks it. They coexist here because the fall is at one end and the rest of the pool stays still; with the fall in the middle there'd be no reflection anywhere.
In a side passage, reserve the circulation width before deciding anything else. It's the route the bins, the hose and whoever services the boiler take: if the pool eats the passage, the garden ends up a nuisance however good it looks.
The planters are dark and so is the wall, so all that reads of them is the fern's silhouette. That's what you want when there's a lead element: a pale planter in that corner would have competed with the falling water.

FAQ

How do you throw a plant's shadow onto a wall?

With a spot at the foot of the plant, aimed up and through it, and a plain wall behind. Three things decide the result. The plant: open-leaved species with visible structure work — bamboo, palm, grasses, ferns — and dense shrubs don't, giving a blob instead of a drawing. The distance: the closer the spot is to the plant and the further away the wall, the larger and softer the shadow. And the beam: a narrow one gives a crisp shadow and a wide one blurs it. Test it at night with a torch before recessing anything.

How deep does a decorative reflecting pool need to be?

Very little to reflect: at ten or fifteen centimetres it already behaves as a mirror, and below that too, as long as the floor is dark. The problem with shallow is everything else: a shallow pool heats up in summer, greens sooner and loses level to evaporation within days. So use a dark bottom, which besides reflecting hides much of the algae, and an autofill valve that tops it up on its own. For more stability you have to go deeper, but then it's no longer a reflecting pool but a pond, with its filtration and its upkeep.

What can you do with the side passage of a house?

It's the most wasted area of almost any plot and it has one advantage the rest of the garden doesn't: nobody sits there, so it takes something purely decorative. First, reserve the circulation width, because it's usually the only access to the back. With what's left you can make a water garden, a planting bed or a green wall. Allow for its conditions too: it's the shadiest and most wind-funnelled strip of the house, and it's usually overlooked by the neighbour, so the planting has to take shade and draught.

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Side passage with a reflecting pool and bamboo shadows on the wall

Design keys

Furniture and decor in this design

How to get this look at home

FAQ

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