An hour from the city, the Yarra Valley trades street frontage for landscape: paddocks, vineyards, creek lines and bush, on sites that are usually large, sloping and exposed. The brief is often a family's main house rather than a weekender, so the design has to balance an outlook across the valley with shelter from the weather, and the robustness of a working rural property with the comfort of a home.
The Lodge — the studio's Hooper project — is a five-bedroom acreage home in the Yarra Valley completed in 2024 and shortlisted at the 2025 Australian Interior Design Awards. Charred timber cladding ties the house to its setting; inside, a long timber-raftered living room, warm plaster and oak joinery make a house that is cosy in winter and open in summer. The garden is by Nathan Burkett Landscape Architecture.
Projects in the area
Planning in the Yarra Valley
The Yarra Valley is largely in Yarra Ranges Shire, with its western edge around Wonga Park and Warrandyte in Manningham and Nillumbik. Outside the townships most land is in the Green Wedge Zone, the Rural Conservation Zone or a rural living zone, where a new dwelling needs a planning permit and is assessed against policies that protect the agricultural and landscape values of the valley, including the Upper Yarra Valley and Dandenong Ranges Regional Strategy Plan.
Bushfire is the defining constraint: much of the shire is in a Bushfire Management Overlay or a bushfire-prone area, so a Bushfire Attack Level assessment, defendable space, water supply and access requirements are settled before the design is fixed. Significant Landscape, Environmental Significance and Erosion Management Overlays apply across the hills and along the waterways, and many lots are unsewered, which brings a land capability assessment for on-site wastewater.
We bring the bushfire, geotechnical and wastewater consultants in at the start, design the house to its BAL rating rather than retrofitting it, and manage the permit through the Shire. A site visit at the first meeting — to walk the land, find the view and understand the wind — is where every rural project begins.
Working with us here
Valley projects are built with Otto Projects and other builders experienced in rural work, with gardens by Nathan Burkett Landscape Architecture. The studio is in Hawthorn, about an hour away.