Behind the design: Garden Tower House by Studio Bright
Teleisha Thomas
April 2025As a freelance photographer, Eve Wilson has captured countless beautiful interiors throughout her career, and her own home is a natural extension of her refined eye for design. Together with her husband Jon, and architectural practice Studio Bright, they have created a home that reflects both warmth and creativity.
Completed in 2022, the home has since been featured in numerous editorials, including The Design Files, The Local Project, Houses magazine and more. As Architecture AU puts it, the home is “private yet permeable, defensive yet decorative,” a lively addition that not only enriches family life but also “animates the neighbourhood.”Within the constraints of an inner-city block, it manages to feel both grounded and generous. We caught up with Eve to learn how she transformed a modest workers cottage into a warm, design-led family home.
Was there a strong vision from the outset, or did the design evolve throughout your collaboration with Studio Bright?
Having lived next door for several years, we knew the property had potential to be turned from a barely touched workers cottage into a beautiful and functional family home. One of its unique features is the northern grass laneway, which allows for multiple points of access to the property, as well as the opportunity to introduce northern light through new windows.
We just needed help working out how to bring that vision to life on such a narrow block.
We worked with Studio Bright on the architecture and interiors, and they did an amazing job bringing to life our brief – which I think was fairly broad. We wanted something with texture and colour, as much greenery as possible and if it could be done, breezeblocks.
Were there any unique challenges you faced during the design or build process?
The property is quite tight so every millimetre is considered – there’s no “dead” space. It was like a big game of Tetris. It’s the hardest working house in Cremorne.
The interiors feel so thoughtfully connected, from the sage tones to the warm blush exterior and original cottage elements. What guided your choices when it came to materials and colours?
I spent a lot of time finding the right architect. I wanted to know that I would love anything that they designed – I think that is one of my biggest lessons from the process. There’s no point approaching a firm with a brief if it’s not in their style—you need to be able to let them do what they do best. Studio Bright were the perfect fit for our aesthetic and they nailed the colour palette straight up – with some tweaks here and there. As well as hardware and lighting I don’t think we changed too much at all from their recommendations.
Do you have a favourite spot in the home? Somewhere that captures what you love most about living here?
My favourite room of the house is our bedroom. The first night we stayed over we said it felt like a hotel room. You can really appreciate the benefit of the use of the breeze blocks here too, as a design feature but also as a practical screen allowing us to have two full sides of windows without any overlooking complications. The large windows are surrounded by greenery which sits in planters inside the ‘skin’ of the breeze blocks. Greenery was high on my list for the house given the inner urban nature of the location. There’s also a curtain that wraps around three sides of the bed on a recessed rail in the ceiling, it’s super cosy.
The blush breeze block towers really set the house apart from its neighbours. Can you tell us about the decision behind using them?
Jonny and I both love mid-century architecture and had visited Palm Springs many years ago and fallen in love with the use of breeze blocks. What started as a visual design element turned into a very functional aspect of the house. The breeze blocks work to give privacy along the laneway and screen the windows so we aren’t breeching any of the overlooking laws from our bedroom.
Having been through the process yourself, what advice would you share with someone about to start their own build?
Find a great architect and trust them. If there was something we were unsure about, design-wise or aesthetically, Em and Mel could explain the reasoning behind it. There’s a reason they’re the best at what they do. Take a chance on aspects that you might feel are pushing the boundaries a bit – the reward will be worth it.
The rooftop feels like a hidden escape above the city. What does this space mean to you?
Friday pizza night has become a regular – it was takeaway but we’ve now purchased a pizza oven and it is amazing! Girls love it when we
pop the music on and watch the sun go down over the city. It’s also a great place to escape to for some peace – no one seems to look for you up there.
Words from the Architect
MELISSA BRIGHT
A key part of our design process is to ensure the design is sympathetic and responsive to context and site. Australia is known for its suburban sprawl and many of our suburbs suffer from having too much space. Increasingly, we need to address how to maximise inner urban areas without losing their fine grain character. We see small house projects as an opportunity to explore larger urban issues about densifying.
In this project, the lane becomes a borrowed landscape, a space of shared amenity and connection between neighbours.
At every opportunity, lush greenery is introduced in small pockets of planted area that, in total, seek to offer landscape surroundings where none are possible. For us, good architecture does not stop at the edge of a building. Design work needs to extend to include landscape, the whole site and even the street and city beyond.
Garden Tower House is a gymnastic exercise in making a family home with all the suburban amenities, fit into an inner-urban site. With all of the components of a full sized house; water tank, solar panels, fireplace and flue, shed and services, absorbed and concealed in pursuit of visual clarity.
The ‘backyard’ is reimagined in a dense urban environment with courtyards, lightwells, rooftops, vertical façade planting and laneways all contributing to the full family brief.
Studio Bright is a Melbourne based practice creating enduring and responsive architecture for people and places. studiobright.com.au
72 Wellington Street, Richmond is on the market with Jellis Craig Richmond.
Contact Jodie McCarthy for more information
