Ivanhoe Alfresco Kitchen

The brief

A north-facing terrace, a family that cooks outside nine months of the year, and a previous barbecue that had weathered into a corner. We built the whole run as one piece: compact laminate carcasses, stainless fixings, sealed edges, and a stone top with a 20 mm overhang so the doors stay dry.

The doors are a dark-stained timber-look compact laminate, so the run recedes against the fence instead of competing with the garden. Storage is deep and dry — a bar fridge, a bin pull-out and drawers sized for the barbecue tools that otherwise live in the kitchen.

It is detailed like an internal kitchen because it has to work like one, with drainage, power and gas planned before the slab went down.