Cut Paw Paw house Photo Peter Bennetts

I’ve written a gazillion times about houses that “blur the lines between inside and out“, usually meaning there’s just some large sliding doors onto a deck or garden. But here’s an architect who doesn’t blur the lines. He rubs them out.

Cut Paw Paw house Design Andrew Maynard Architetcs. Photo Peter Bennetts

Andrew Maynard’s ‘Cut Paw Paw’ house (an exquisite moniker based on the eccentric original parish name) is a house in Melbourne’s Fitzroy that’s part of its surrounding landscape. Or it’s a garden with some functional furniture and fittings. Hmm….. maybe it’s time we stopped putting label divides on architecture and landscape design.

Cut Paw Paw house. Design Andrew Maynard Architects Photo Peter Bennetts

Although these photos show young plantings, it’s clear from the house plans that the intention is for these trees to grow up through the roof framework into mature specimens. That will require some careful formative pruning to get a comfortable canopy height and growth going in the right direction and, I suspect, a change of flooring from grass to alternative ground-covers as the shade increases. But this is clearly a house that can bend to nature as the years pass.

Cut Paw Paw house design Andrew Maynard Architects

Cut Paw Paw house plans Design Andrew Maynard Architects

The clients had asked for a house that was “ridiculously inside-out”. While the Fitzroy four-post verandah cottage retains it’s traditional frontage, it disguises the architectural revolution that’s going on out the back.

See more at Andrew Maynard Architects