Five Key Themes From Our Podcast With Clare Cousins

Architect and founder of her namesake studio, Clare Cousins, welcomes Karen McCartney into her newly completed Melbourne home. Together they explore her affinity for honest materials and integrated garden rooms, while considering architecture’s responsibility to the community—through urban and rural housing, workplace, cultural, and social projects.

1. Architecture as Advocacy and Social Impact

For Cousins, architecture is not just about individual homes—it’s about community, advocacy and impact. Her involvement in projects like Nightingale Village, which integrates private, social and affordable housing within a cohesive, sustainable precinct, reflects a belief that good design should be accessible to all. “Architects often are very altruistic and do want to make good places and spaces,” Cousins reflects. “This was an opportunity for us to be able to test those ideas,” she adds. Her leadership roles—including as past National President of the Australian Institute of Architects—further extend this commitment to shaping policy, equity and urban outcomes.

Designed by Cousins for long-term local clients, The Nursery in Brunswick reimagines a commercial site as a generously verdant retreat shared with the street—retaining the Nursery as a semi-public, atrium-like courtyard space surrounded by apartments and retail. “What we’re often looking for is how the project can be generous—not only to serve the occupants of the building, but also the street beyond,” she says.

2. Architecture in Dialogue with Landscape

Cousins blurs the line between garden and architecture through her holistic design approach. In her own home, this manifests as a series of garden rooms—courtyards, pockets of greenery, and a centrally located pool—that dissolve boundaries between indoors and out. “We’ve carved out smaller gardens in lots of different spaces,” Cousins says. “The immersion into the garden—that anticipation—is something that we love to play with and explore often.” The traditional notion of a backyard is replaced by layered, immersive sequences that gently guide movement and frame views.

This relationship is thoughtfully embodied in Courtyard House, where an internal courtyard garden forms the home’s centrepiece. Shaped from within, this home brings nature into the spatial experience, harmoniously merging landscape with built form. This philosophy extends across her residential work; landscape is not an afterthought but an integrated element that enriches spatial flow, enhances wellbeing, and reflects a deep sensitivity to site.

Clare Cousins | Portrait by Jessica Lindsay

Courtyard House by Clare Cousins Architects | Photography by Tom Ross

2. A Sensory Approach to Material Honesty

Cousins’ expresses her affinity for robust, honest materials that have become integral in her work—those that age gracefully, express their nature, and respond to light in emotive ways. Cousins prioritises a material palette of recycled brick, travertine, concrete and timber, which were featured extensively throughout her own home. “Quite naturally, I do love really tough, hard materials—while still enjoying how we can bring softness and refined execution into the space,” she says. The contrast between rough and smooth, hard and soft, is central to her material palette, designing spaces that feel grounded and lived-in. For Cousins, materials are never just surface— they shape how a space feels, functions, and evolves.

The Nursery in Brunswick by Clare Cousins Architects | Photography by Tom Ross

Stable & Cart House by Clare Cousins Architects | Photography by Sharyn Cairns

The Nursery in Brunswick by Clare Cousins Architects | Photography by Tom Ross

4. Personal Expression in Design

Cousins explains how her own home is more than a family residence—it’s a form of personal experimentation. As both architect and client, she used the project to test ideas that have long informed her practice, from inverted planning sequences to unexpected light play and a softened, layered palette. Free from client expectations, she was able to interrogate familiar preferences and trial alternatives—sometimes returning to the tried and true, and other times uncovering something entirely new. “Being our own house, it is an opportunity to kind of test those things,” Cousins says. “And I think it would be a missed opportunity if you didn’t.” In this way, her home is a living prototype—one that feeds insight, nuance and confidence back into the studio’s broader residential design approach.

Courtyard House by Clare Cousins Architects | Photography by Tom Ross

5. An Enduring Design Approach

Designing for change is a central part of Cousins’ practice. Whether working with young families or ageing homeowners, she approaches each project with the future in mind—considering how spatial arrangements can adapt to shifting needs over time. In her own home, this means bedrooms that offer separation for teenagers, living zones that support connection and retreat, and a layout free from wasted circulation. “We always talk to clients about the longevity, flexibility and adaptability that houses should have,” she notes. Her plans favour room-to-room transitions over hallways, supporting efficiency without sacrificing flow, designing homes that resonate today while remaining relevant for decades to come.