Peace and tranquility are top of mind for the designers at Zen Associates.The custom wood slat wall panel adds depth and ties in the exterior view.

When ZEN Associates (zenassociates.com) works with homeowners on a project, there’s one important criteria both parties meet: the desire to create a calm, peaceful space both inside and out. In ZEN’s work across interior design, landscape architecture, and design and build services, the firm masterfully achieves a sense of tranquility.

“A lot of clients are looking for serene, peaceful and less cluttered,” says Rina Okawa, director of interior design at ZEN Associates. “Especially when they work from home, they want to be closer to their outdoor space. We implement fundamental design elements that create calmness.”

This courtyard entrance communicates both serenity and drama.

Each project exhibits a skillful blending of the indoors and outdoors, thanks to deep influences from Japanese design, the embracing of asymmetry, and above all, the prioritization of the power of nature. Once a client’s ideas are heard and their priorities are established, the team gets to work implementing a gentle flow in the home, emphasizing the natural environment at every turn.

That process begins with reviewing the use of materials and colors in the interior and exterior spaces, explains Peter White, firm principal and landscape architect. If an oversized window displays views with stonework visible, for example, stonework in the same pattern is employed indoors to make a visual connection.

Floor to ceiling windows blur the boundary between the indoors and outdoors

“It’s about paying attention to: when you’re inside, what do you see outside?” White says.

Natural materials like stone and wood come into play, supplemented by organic fabrics and muted colorways. The idea is to extend the colors and textures from the landscape into the home, while still creating opportunities to commune with the outdoors from inside.

An exterior path leading to the backyard brings a sense of connection with nature.

Void space—as opposed to occupied space—is the next consideration, Okawa explains. “We tend to leave space, or room, to breathe so the flow is better,” she says. Walls of glass and large picture windows also play into a home’s void spaces, she notes, framing views of the outdoors as if they were pieces of artwork. Oftentimes, a window is installed to put an outdoor garden on display from a specific vantage point. In those designs, “the garden is the painting,” White says.

Similarly, much consideration is given to light—and how it enters a room. The landscape can alter the amount of sunlight streaming in, with trees and plants creating shade or projecting leafy shadows onto a sun-dappled wood floor. And in homes outside of urban areas, where there are few outdoor lights glimpsed from inside, windows act as a mirror reflecting the home’s interior. In those cases, the team installs lighting outside to break down the mirror reflection, intentionally shifting the focus from indoors to the outdoors.

The contemporary architecture is balanced at the entrance through the use of plants, stone, water and lighting

Each small design decision to carry natural features from outdoors into the home works to foster the tranquil spaces ZEN Associates is known for.

“All those techniques help break down the barrier,” White says. “The inside space becomes bigger and more interesting, simply because you can see the exterior spaces.”