Expand Your Horizons

This contemporary, top-floor balcony garden is the perfect venue for entertaining, summer or winter

- Karen Booth

You don’t need oodles of outside space to be able to entertain, which is great news for the growing number of Australian families living in apartments. All you require is some creative thinking and an understanding of the challenges that come with designing a balcony space to create a chic outdoor entertaining area.

“The brief for this project was to soften the harsh external elements of the apartment balcony,” says Brent Reid from Candeo Design. “This was to include adding foliage through a subtle, Asian-themed planting palette outside the bedroom and living-room windows, creating an area for entertaining and providing a place for growing herbs and vegetables that wouldn’t be in the way.”

The custom-made, built-in planter boxes are a standout element of the design and central to its success. “As the aluminium and glass balcony fencing was part of the building and couldn’t be changed, we decided to make the planter boxes out of polished aluminium with spotted gum decking timber inserts to tie it all together,” Brent explains.