A Melbourne residence by Edition Office above the Birrarung floodplain, its tree canopy woven through with Eckersley Garden Architecture's seasonal planting.

House in a Garden sits above the Birrarung floodplain in Melbourne on a site previously occupied by a 1980s Mediterranean Revival home. That building dominated the land it sat on. Edition Office's response inverts that arrangement: the new dwelling takes its organizational cues from the tree canopy overhead rather than from the street below, and the garden becomes the primary spatial reference throughout.

Lead architect Aaron Roberts and project architect Jono Brener organized the plan around 2 wings with opposing characters. One is open and oriented toward living; the other closes off for sleeping and retreat. The main living volume rises to meet the canopy, with smoothly rounded timber walls dividing space without interrupting the sense of expansiveness. Rounded corners in timber construction are not a decorative choice. They reduce the optical weight of a wall by removing the hard termination a square edge creates, allowing a room to read as continuous rather than cornered. The effect is perceptual as much as structural.

At ground level, large structural columns organize the landscape into distinct spatial episodes. Some extend upward to create voids for taller trees; others terminate beneath a timber soffit, compressing into shaded recesses where undergrowth is dense. The structure does double duty as landscape curation, directing movement and framing the garden as a series of spatial events rather than a single backdrop.

Eckersley Garden Architecture's planting is calibrated to the building rather than incidental to it. Seasonal color changes track time through the interior as the canopy shifts, making the garden as much a part of the spatial experience as any room.