Presented by Marvin

Much like the new and expanded expectations for their home’s interiors, clients are calling on their outdoor spaces to perform more functions than ever before, from a second living room to a party pad to a hydrotherapy spa. In response, designers are eagerly taking up the challenge, crafting backyards, gardens, terraces, and pool decks that can satisfy diverse needs without sacrificing aesthetics. At the same time, as natural disasters have put climate-resilient design at the forefront of industry discourse, our at-home landscapes can play another critical role: a first line of defense.

AD PRO’s first member-exclusive trend report of 2025 is a definitive guide to beautiful, elevated outdoor design that is also future-proof, fireproof, and beneficial to both humans and the environment. Supported by trend analysis, expert reporting, and insights from AD’s extensive network of designers from around the globe—including AD100 talents, AD PRO Directory members, and landscape specialists—it offers advice, investigation, and predictions about the outdoor living topics that matter today, and will be even more important tomorrow. From designing for the outdoor sauna craze to exploring a rewilded garden to the trending furniture, lighting, and accessories Directory members recommend sourcing now, this report is essential to an informed designer’s next outdoor project. We advise you dive right in.

Plus, AD PRO Asks:

Fire Risk Isn’t Going Anywhere, But Landscape Can Help Prevent the Worst. Here’s How

Experts reveal how to optimize a garden’s hardscape, plantings, and layout as a beautiful defense

As climate change transforms our environment, North America’s fire season—traditionally beginning in the spring and peaking in early fall—may well become a daily condition. After all, some three wintry months into 2025, fires have already devastated communities throughout California, Texas, New Mexico, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Kansas, South Carolina, Mississippi, Missouri, Maryland, Tennessee, Colorado, and currently New York. Aging energy infrastructure, invasive grasses, and our propensity to develop land in fire-prone regions are literally adding fuel to these flames.

A recent survey estimated that 84% of those fires currently costing tens of thousands of North Americans their homes—and all of us billions of tax dollars to support the firefighting—are caused by humans. This is not a drill: The reality and risk of fires must be taken seriously and mitigating them can and should be part of design practice. But how? AD PRO spoke to landscape experts across the United States for recommendations that start in the garden.

Give your outdoor space a clean sweep

First, reduce existing risks. “We have clients attracted to properties in rural locations because they’re beautifully set in nature,” says Mike Albert, principal of Design Workshop in Aspen, Colorado. But that beauty isn’t always safe. “One of the most important steps in a landscape design is eliminating fire hazards,” says Max Martin of AD100 firm Geoponika, “particularly by removing fire ladders—dense vegetation that can carry flames toward a structure.” Overgrown or parched shrubs, for example, can quickly combust and transfer blazes to neighboring trees. So, too, can a wood deck. “It’s important that you clear the vegetation around the base of a deck,” Albert says. “You can imagine properties on hillsides where the fire is coming up the hill, the brush is on fire, and it goes right up the deck.”

Thus, risk mitigation is all about location. “[Plantings] can transmit fire very quickly if they’re spaced too close to structures, planted in large groupings without breaks, or without at least six feet between the bottom of the tree canopy and the top of the shrubs underneath,” explains Adam Kober, president and creative director of Newport Beach, California–based landscape studio Kober Design Group. Whenever possible, “tree groupings should be kept at three to five per grouping and with at least twenty inches between them,” he says. “Additionally, six feet spacing should be kept between large shrub beds.” Thinking critically about modifying existing landscape design, or conceiving new plantings, to meet these standards is a good way to potentially fell those fire ladders.