A Guide to Contemporary Paving

With the arrival of a new decade, many people are looking to modernise many things about their homes and gardens. If you want to bring your garden into the 2020s with style, your first port of call should be your paving. Often functioning as the most social area of your garden, the style of your patio will impact the overall appearance of your garden, regardless of how the rest of the area looks. Here at Landscaping Supplies Direct, we pride ourselves on being able to help everyone create their perfect garden, be it in a modern or traditional style. We’ve put together this guide to help you create a modern patio design that you will love. By following these guidelines, you can create the ideal contemporary paving to suit your garden, so let’s get started.

Sleek, Uncluttered Designs

Contemporary paving tends to be smooth and sleek, utilising clean lines and uniformity across the style of stone. Modern design in general usually features a consistent sense of evenness, with uneven or uncut edging being ditched in favour of perfectly aligned paving stones. Square or rectangular slabs create parallel joints, in turn allowing the use of minimal mortar between the stones, which allows the clean surface of the paving to dominate the patio. When grouted effectively, these parallel paving styles will look neat, uncluttered and quintessentially modern. 

Solid, Uniform Colours

When it comes to choosing which colour paving stones to buy, there is really only one rule when it comes to modern paving: solid colours. Paving slabs that feature a gradient or heat-treated stone colouration often work against the feeling of uniformity that contemporary paving is known for. A popular modern colour choice is grey, as grey is a clean colour that doesn’t show dirt as easily as lighter colours and matches with the neutrality of many contemporary designs. Neutral colours like this will also help to emphasise the natural features of your garden, with grey especially being a strong contrast against a lawn or flowerbed.

Crisp Edging

The basis of modern paving is to provide a contrast to the natural features of your garden, emphasising a lawn, flowerbed or other garden feature. Nowhere in your garden is this more exemplified than where your patio meets these features. Patio edging can be tackled in many ways, from decorative aggregates, walling, bullnose edgings or kerbs. Following on from the theme of clean designs, evenly lined edging will help to present an effective contrast with your natural features. A popular option for achieving this is with bullnose edgings or block-style kerbs in conjunction with a decorative aggregate. 

Popular Contemporary Materials

A lot of what we’ve mentioned in this guide is related to clean, sleek looking paving stones. As you might have guessed, some materials can present this look better than others. We wouldn’t advise using concrete paving for a modern garden, as it rarely offers the crisp and clean look that some materials can provide. 

A popular choice is granite paving, which provides an elegant, clean look, while also being one of the most durable materials. Granite is also available in a range of tones from light grey to dark grey and Black. The most popular paving option in the UK today is Indian sandstone. With sandstone comes a reliable quality, durability and incredibly sleek look. Sandstone provides a more natural look than granite, with a range of tones to be found in even one slab. While contemporary paving does promote uniformity, you can get away with it with Indian sandstone, purely because of how gorgeous it looks. 

If you’re looking to create a top-quality modern patio, your best option may be ">porcelain paving. Created using clay and quartz sand, porcelain paving is sintered at high temperatures, resulting in a harder slab that offers higher durability than most stone. Boasting a lower rate of water absorption and scratch-resistant surface, vitrified paving is ideal for unpredictable British weather. Vitrified or Porcelain slabs come in a range of colours with a consistent thickness, which is ideal for an even and modern look. In keeping with the modern theme, the colours are much more uniform when compared to the natural stone paving.

Make It Your Own

While there are certain guidelines to follow if you’re looking for a modern patio, the sky's the limit when it comes to how you follow them. The most important thing is to create an environment that you will want to spend time in, and a garden that fits your needs. Here at Landscaping Supplies Direct, we take pride in helping our customers create the perfect garden while balancing their budget with their vision. Feel free to get in touch with our paving experts if you need further advice, we’re always happy to help!