The Riyadh Tent House project was inspired by the Jeddah home in which Matthew Garden Landscape's client grew up. This was also a ‘tent house’ designed in the same style as a Bedouin stretch tent.

The young client wanted to raise his own family in a similar structure, but with a landscape that was primarily comprised of native plants and with the minimal recourse to artificial irrigation. The  approach was to create a core landscape in the environs of the house inspired by an oasis, using water to mitigate the effects of daytime heat. A long body of water was located in the lee of the tent to benefit from the shade and create a cooling updraft into the tent. In the three courtyard gardens a linear water wall over which a thin film of water passed would create a cooling effect. The intent was for these to be made in stone, which would be cool to the touch and aid the overall cooling effect of the feature. The water features in the garden were designed to be filled and run for filtered grey water from an onsite harvesting system. Culinary palm trees form the canopy planting in the landscape, casting shade and providing fruit. The wider landscape consisted of zero irrigation planting in the form of a dry river bed and associated planted banks. The intent here was to use plants native to the Arabian Peninsula that adapted to the high temperatures and low rainfall of Riyadh.