Sunlit Forest

Sunlit Forest is our largest residential garden to date — a holiday home by the sea in Bangsan where calm, relaxation, and warmth needed to carry across more than a thousand square meters.

The brief

The family visits on weekends with friends and relatives. They wanted a garden big enough to host, but not one that felt like an open field. The house sat exposed on a flat, sunny plot with little existing shade.

Design approach

We planted the site as a young forest: a canopy layer of shade trees, a middle layer of shrubs and hedges, and low planting along the paths. Rooms are carved out of this woodland — a dining pavilion with a long table, a lawn for games, and quiet benches at the edges.

Paths are laid east–west wherever possible so morning and late-afternoon light filters through the canopy, giving the garden its name.

The result

As the canopy fills in, the garden gets cooler and more private each year. Guests move between shaded rooms rather than across an open lawn, and the house now feels set inside the landscape instead of standing on top of it.