Set against the pastoral horizon of Victoria’s Bellarine Peninsula, Kate Patterson Landscape Design creates a striking dialogue between architecture and landscape by pairing richly textured plantings against a bold exterior.
The result is a site defined by deliberate juxtaposition — where bold architectural forms meet soft, expressive plantings to shape a layered and immersive living experience.
Photography above by David Mitchener.
The architecture, designed by Design by AD, reimagines the Australian farmhouse — comprising “three main forms that serve their own purpose.”
The architectural language is defined by three gabled volumes clad in dark standing seam metal, drawing a clear lineage from utilitarian farm outbuildings while adopting a minimalist silhouette.
In contrast to the architecture’s restraint, Kate Patterson’s landscape strategy leans into movement, texture, and sensory experience.
Linear drifts of ornamental grasses and native perennials provide rhythm and softness — their curving forms a counterpoint to the angular precision of the buildings.
Verbena bonariensis, with its tall, airy stems and vibrant violet blooms, is used masterfully throughout the planting palette, introducing seasonal verticality and a kinetic quality that shimmers in the afternoon light.
The entry sequence is a study in simplicity and control. A lone tree, framed by low stone walls and massed grass plantings, punctuates the arrival.
From there, the garden expands and contracts, moving from structured zones near the building’s threshold to looser, meadow-inspired compositions around the perimeter.
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Throughout the site, the interplay between built and planted elements is deliberate.
The glass fencing surrounding the sunken pool deck disappears into the scene, allowing tall grasses to blur the line between architecture and landscape.
Views through the home are constantly reframed — softened by textured planting and the dappled light that filters through groves of young trees.
Environmental performance is woven into the spatial planning through the use of resilient, low-maintenance plantings that support passive design strategies.
The home’s U-shaped footprint shelters a wind-protected courtyard while opening outward to prevailing views.
At its core, Scotchmans Farm is a project of calibration. It balances lightness with solidity, openness with privacy, and rusticity with refinement.
The garden and home coalesce in quiet harmony — not as separate disciplines, but as a unified whole. And in doing so, the project redefines what it means to live rurally in a modern Australian context: connected to land, tuned to climate, and anchored by design.
With a refined yet grounded design sensibility, Kate Patterson Landscape Design specializes in residential and rural projects where planting, materiality, and spatial flow are carefully balanced.
Kate’s approach is rooted in collaboration and ecological sensitivity, often blurring the boundaries between built form and natural systems.
Her gardens are layered, immersive, and enduring — designed not just for visual appeal, but for how they feel, function, and evolve over time.
Landscape Architecture by: Kate Patterson Landscape Design (@katepattersonld)
Architecture by: Design by AD (@_designbyad)
Photography by: David Mitchener (@davidmitchenerphotographer)
