 Throughout his early studies for the Villa, Aalto envisaged an L-shaped plan similar to that of his own house in Munkkiniemi (1934–36).There, the ‘L’ shape distinguishes between the house proper and the integral studio; at Villa Mairea, it separates the family accommodation from that of a courtyard - garden variously enclosed by combinations of walls, fences, trellises and the wooden sauna.Demetri Porphyrios has pointed out that this plan form is common amongst Scandinavian aristocratic residences; it was also used, for example, by Gunnar Asplund in his celebrated Snellman House of 1919.