The Studio · Sydney · Est. 2011
A small studio, shaping gardens with patience.
We believe a garden should feel like it has always been there. That belief shapes everything we do — from the way we hold first conversations, to the species we recommend, to how we hand a finished garden over.
Our work begins with observation. We spend time on a site before we draw anything — watching how morning light moves across a courtyard, where the wind cuts in from, which existing trees deserve to stay. The drawing follows the looking, not the other way around.
We choose plants the way we choose materials — for how they will look in ten years, not ten weeks. A garden that demands to be replaced every spring is not, to our eye, a finished garden. We favour palettes that thicken with time, that need less of us as the years pass.
And we keep the practice small. Four people, a short list of projects, and the same studio hands from first conversation through the second year of seasonal care. The work is slower this way. We think it is also better.
Between us: a landscape architect, a senior designer, a horticulturist and a build manager. Every project carries all four sets of hands.
Founder of the studio. AILA registered with two decades shaping coastal and inner-city Sydney gardens — and a long-standing love of dry-stone walls.
Leads our heritage and walled-garden work. Trained at the RBG Sydney before joining the studio in 2017 — and quietly the best plantswoman on the team.
Holds the studio's planting palettes — native and exotic — and runs the first two years of seasonal care on every garden we hand over.
Manages the build phase end-to-end with our trusted network of stonemasons and landscapers. Twelve years on site before he ever opened a CAD file.
A site visit and conversation to understand how you want to live with your garden.
Hand-drawn sketches and a planting story that captures the spirit of your site.
Detailed construction drawings, planting plans and specification ready for build.
On-site management through construction, then planting and seasonal care.
The studio sits on the lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. Our projects span the Country of many First Nations across New South Wales — Dharug, Darkinjung, Gundungurra, Wodi Wodi and Yuin among them.
We pay our respects to Elders past and present, and acknowledge that sovereignty over these lands was never ceded. The knowledge First Nations peoples hold of how to design with the land — its plants, its seasons, its water — long predates and continues to shape our own.
We respond to new project enquiries within three working days. There is a short waitlist — we typically begin new design work eight to twelve weeks after the first conversation.