How a ‘Less Is Best’ Approach to the Landscape Design Settled the Off-Grid Home

Gardens

Jan 22

How a ‘Less Is Best’ Approach to the Landscape Design Settled the Off-Grid Home

22nd of January, 2024

Sue, a travel writer, and Jim, a hydrologist, worked with Ben Callery Architects to design an off-grid weekender. However, they knew that once the home was built, it'd feel bare without considering the landscape, so they engaged Kathleen Murphy Landscape Design to make their dwelling feel a part of the landscape.

Kathleen, director of Kathleen Murphy Landscape Design, wanted to take a sensitive approach to the landscape design, keeping things simple.

"I wanted to really tread lightly and respect the environment and actually just draw in the beauty closer to the dwelling," Kathleen explains. "It was taking the cues from the architecture of the home. The dwelling is very pared back, so the landscape needed to be quite simple. And we've really gone back to the elements."

The design of the garden focused on plants that could survive the harsh conditions. Perched up on a ridge in High Camp, Victoria, the site is impacted by low-cyclonic winds. While there is water collection for the home, there is zero irrigation for the garden. So when you have that, combine that with 40°C summer days and frost in the winter; plant selection is critical.

Mounds were implemented to provide shelter to Sue and Jim while defining spaces and directing your views. A stone bench, made from stone found on the site, with a corten bowl that acts as a fireplace or bird bath, gives the owners and guests a place to gather in the landscape.

"I loved the simplicity of what Ben had come up with for the off-grid dwelling, and we also knew that a simple landscape treatment would actually amplify the beauty of what he was creating and the wider landscape." Kathleen explains. "I've used this philosophy in all my designs, 'Less is best'. I think there is real beauty in simplicity."

Elemental House by Kathleen Murphy Landscape Design, architecture by Ben Callery Architects.

Production, photography and words by Anthony Richardson.