Twenty gardens. Twenty stories.
The most personal gardens are the ones we rarely see — hidden behind walls, perched above cities, tucked into coastal clifftops. Designing Private Realms opens twenty of them.
Curated by Secret Gardens founder and creative director Matthew Cantwell, each is an enclave built through years of collaboration between designer, client, architecture and place. Intimate, considered, and completely its own.
Inside the book
From a rammed-earth courtyard house in Perth to a clifftop garden above the sea, the twenty projects move from hardy coastal grasses to dense, layered planting — landscapes made to be lived in, and to shift with the light, wind and seasons.
Waterfronts · Rooftops · Inner-city courtyards · Coastal clifftops · Rural acres
A book as considered as the gardens within
A 324-page cloth-bound volume, screen printed and bound to gallery standard. Large format, full-bleed photography throughout - made to be handled, gifted, and as considered as the gardens within. Curated by Matthew Cantwell. Written by Peter Salhani. Photographed by Nicholas Watt.
Cloth-Bound Hardback
324-page hardback, cloth-bound for
a tactile, quietly luxurious feel.
Large format
A generous page size, designed to let photography lead. Every garden is given room to breathe, from wide landscape shots to close, considered detail.
Screen-Printed Cover
Each cover is screen printed rather than digitally reproduced. A slower, more considered process that gives the object real texture and depth.
Quietly Exceptional
Access like this is rare. Twenty private gardens, revealed to the reader.
The Studio
Secret Gardens has spent over thirty years building some of Australia's most admired private gardens, from inner-city rooftops to coastal gardens and rural acreage.
The studio's work has been named to the VL50 list of the country's leading landscape designers, published internationally, and recognised with multiple design awards.
Designing Private Realms is the second book from Secret Gardens - and the first from Cantilever Press, a new imprint dedicated to design publishing. Read more
“Architecture is a medium that allows people to feel the presence of nature.”
Opened by Andrea Quagliola of MORQ, on the rare trust between architect and landscape designer — and a garden built both to frame a house and, slowly, to reclaim it.
As featured in
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Designing Private Realms ships this October.
Pre-order now to secure a copy from the first print run.
