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This Yarra River home has one foot in the ’burbs, the other in the bush
An architect-designed house can either scream for attention or dissolve into the landscape.
Set on an escarpment above a Yarra River tributary in Melbourne’s north-east is an award-winning house designed by Studio Bright that does the latter – it has one foot in the ’burbs and the other in the bush.
The strength of this design is that it appreciates the garden through all the seasons. Autumn is extremely memorable as the Virginia creeper turns red.Credit: Rory Gardiner
“It was that condition that drove the design,” says architect Mel Bright, director of Studio Bright, who worked closely with her team and project architect, Emily Watson. “You have this four-metre-high clipped hedge [at the street] and soon discover this bushland.”
Although Studio Bright could have followed a formal approach with the garden, given the hedge, they opted for a “dialogue” with native species, working closely with landscape architect Sarah Hicks, director of Emergent Studio.
Large sliding timber doors allow the bedrooms to feel more spacious when the doors are open.Credit: Rory Gardiner
“We saw the house more as a viewing platform in the bush,” says Bright, whose clients, a couple with a child, were after a house they could stay in for perpetuity.
The relatively modest single-level Hedge and Arbour House, at just under 250 square metres, punches well above its weight. It’s orientated at the southern edge of a sprawling 2000-square-metre site where a significant portion of land is not suitable for building given the slope.
Entering the house is like walking through a set of garden rooms, with the second garden room at a slightly lower level. A concrete block square-arched wall separates the two, an effect not dissimilar to stepping into a sunken lounge, but outdoors.
The house follows a T-shaped plan, with the branch of the T orientated to the north and accommodating the open-plan kitchen, dining and living area.
Flanked by gardens on either side – one planted in native shrubs, the other a lawn – it, like the forecourt garden, is akin to sitting in a garden room.
This house has one foot in the ’burbs and the other in the bush.Credit: Rory Gardiner
Studio Bright used a combination of fibro cement with an exterior layer of galvanised mesh to allow the Virginia creeper to further blur the division between home and garden.
“When the house was completed, before the vines took over, it had more of an industrial feel,” says Watson, who was keen for the creepers to kick in before the photographer was called.
Many architects and designers gravitate to high-end finishes and materials. Bright preferred a simple, functional interior.
Bright preferred a simple, functional interior.Credit: Rory Gardiner
“We preferred to widen the corridor and create spaces that would be used within it, not just provide for circulation,” says Bright, who included large sliding timber doors to each bedroom. This also allows the bedrooms to feel even more spacious when the doors are open.
Likewise, the kitchen, constructed in steel and spotted gum, is extremely serviceable even without a butler’s kitchen.
“Our client enjoys cooking but from the outset, her priority was on the garden,” says Bright, who was also conscious of delivering a robust house, one that required little or no maintenance.
The strength of this design is that it appreciates the garden through all the seasons. Autumn is extremely memorable as the Virginia creeper turns red. It may not have sprawling rooms or wall-to-wall marble ensuites, but Hedge and Arbour House clearly demonstrates what can be achieved when an architect responds to a client’s brief and delivers more than attention-seeking trends.
It deserves the Harold Desbrowe-Annear award for residential architecture it was given by the Australian Institute of Architects (Victorian chapter).
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