Studio Bright shades Melbourne home with metal screens for climbing plants

Metal mesh screens for climbing plants form a leafy arbour that shades the interiors of this home in Melbourne, designed by Australian practice Studio Bright.

Tucked into a green site concealed by a large hedge in the suburbs of Melbourne, the home, aptly named Hedge and Arbour House, was designed by Studio Bright as a simple, single storey structure that would "defer to the landscape".

Flanked by walled gardens designed with landscape studio Bush Projects, the home has metal screens for deciduous climbing plants that naturally adapt to the changing seasons, providing sun-shading in summer and falling away in winter.

"The architectural response is deliberately recessive and quiet, designed to defer to the landscape," Studio Bright principal Mel Bright told Dezeen.

Exterior of Hedge and Arbour House by Studio Bright — Climbing plants grow over the metal screens to shade interior spaces

"Instead of a dominant built form, we focused on creating garden walls and thresholds that enhance the transition from suburban fabric to bushland," she continued.

"The exterior mesh doubles as a climbing frame for deciduous vines, forming an integrated shading system that admits winter sunlight deep into the interior while shielding occupants from harsh summer heat."

Interior of Hedge and Arbour House by Studio Bright — Garden walls were designed to create a transitional space between the home and the surrounding bushland

The two large gardens of Hedge and Arbour House are divided by a central living, dining and kitchen area, with sliding glass doors that open onto two porches shaded by the home's plant-covered metal screens.

Along the site's southern edge is an elongated bedroom block, the western edge of which is wrapped by a sheltered walkway overlooked by a series of seating areas and desks tucked beneath large windows in a connecting corridor.

Behind the home's perforated metal screens, its structure and garden walls were built using pale, solid-face blockwork, which was left visible throughout the interiors and clad with cement sheeting on the exterior.

Both this blockwork and perforated metal were selected by Studio Bright for their robustness and low-maintenance requirements, but also for the contrast they provide against the changing colours of the surrounding planting.

Living area with blockwork walls in an Australian home — Blockwork walls were left exposed in the interior

"The house itself is clad in straightforward cement sheeting, keeping maintenance minimal and shifting the emphasis to the arbour, which is low maintenance, and with no applied finish," Bright told Dezeen.

"The changing nature of the deciduous creeper vine adds a varied quality across the seasons as the vines go from green to red in Autumn and then fall away completely in Winter."