Con­ceived as a pri­vate har­bour enclave, the brief for this gar­den —locat­ed in Syd­ney’s pres­ti­gious Point Piper neigh­bour­hood— was to cre­ate pri­va­cy and address exter­nal acoustics while lim­it­ing views to neigh­bour­ing prop­er­ties. But it was also an oppor­tu­ni­ty to cre­ate an envi­ron­ment in which the client could expe­ri­ence, and con­nect with, the diverse beau­ty of nature.

To achieve this our team worked in lay­ers, fol­low­ing the topog­ra­phy of the land to expose and direct views towards the har­bour. Gar­den beds through­out have been redesigned to accom­mo­date estab­lished trees, many of which were reach­ing height of 20 meters or more on instal­la­tion. Togeth­er, they define the prop­er­ty bound­ary, pro­vid­ing the appro­pri­ate scale while deliv­er­ing on our vision of a home recessed with­in the jungle.

Else­where, and by work­ing col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly with archi­tect Richard Archer of Archer Design we have cre­at­ed an ele­gant, seam­less link between inside and out. Here, these exter­nal zones free-flow off the inte­ri­or, cre­at­ing a sophis­ti­cat­ed yet seclud­ed space to enter­tain, lounge and dine. Oth­er struc­tur­al works include recon­struc­tion of exter­nal stairs and reshap­ing of the sand­stone wall to achieve the appro­pri­ate flow and tran­si­tion between levels.