The Salt-Wind Garden bucks a streetscape of manicured kikuyu lawns to celebrate an emerging style of contemporary Australian garden design – one that displays the exuberance of a deep appreciation of place, Australian native plants, locally-won materials, subdued but gorgeous views, and year-long outdoor living.

Oxigen's design for the garden works with the recent renovation at the rear of the house by establishing new outdoor garden rooms that extend living areas and provides comfortably spaces all year round. The design continues a conversation on an emerging Australian style that celebrates our soils, climate and endemic plants relating to place. The antithesis to other gardens along the foreshore that celebrate the Aussie lawn and workshop the views looking full-on to the western sun, biodiversity is returned to this small garden that has become a haven for birds and lizards, and a place that is truly enjoyable to be in.

This garden is organised around boardwalks, decks and small outdoor rooms that make usable a small site. Transitions are achieved via timber boardwalks and decks, providing pedestrian access into the site from the beach and linking inside with out. These decks and boardwalks ‘float’ above the garden, spatially enclosing the rooms whilst protecting the vegetation. Decks are a reminder of the timber jetties and wharfs found along the Fleurieu coastline, including a now removed small wharf for loading wheat onto barges at Carrickalinga. Natural materials are used – local crushed granite paths and locally collected boulders. There is a small ‘lawn’ of native grasses.

Materials are functional and suited to bare feet and the occasional snake that passes through. Materials are considered and reflect the sense of place of the site. They extend the colours, textures and materiality of the natural site into a designed garden that is robust, sustainable and evolving.

Planting is structured into 5 layers that support the restoration of sustainable biodiversity – trees, large shrubs, small shrubs, grasses and groundcovers, and rocks and logs. The paucity of a lawn is replaced by a diverse and complex ecosystem that returns habitat and results in a wonderful garden environment.