—Words Carli Phillips
For over four decades, Melbourne architecture practice Wood Marsh has operated with a clarity of vision inspired by the arts rather than contemporary design trends. The result is a groundbreaking body of work that embodies striking sculptural qualities balanced by an interplay of solidity and transparency with expertly curated artwork. Offering a thoughtful response to context and place, Wood Marsh has undoubtedly left an indelible mark on Victoria’s built environment.
Few names have enriched Melbourne’s architectural landscape as significantly as Wood Marsh. Founded in 1983 by then-young architecture graduates Roger Wood and Randal Marsh, the practice has evolved from its early days designing nightclubs and a film studio to incorporate a diverse portfolio that spans residential, commercial and infrastructure work. Widely acclaimed and the recipients of countless awards, co-founders Wood and Marsh cemented their ethos from the outset with a commitment to invoke art as a guiding force, creating buildings that are sculptural in their external form and expressive in experience.
Over time, as trends have come and gone, the pair’s clarity of vision has never wavered. “Art has always influenced our direction,” says Marsh, citing painting, photography, filmmaking and fashion more than traditional architecture, as references. In particular, large-scale land artists including Christo, Donald Judd and Richard Serra, have been constant sources of inspiration.
Central to Wood Marsh’s approach is a philosophy of architecture as permanent, three-dimensional sculpture that is also functional. Their projects have a consistently tight materials palette and toggle between opacity and transparency. Intrinsically tethered to site, their residential buildings are purposely intriguing, with mystifying silhouettes and entrances often obscured by hulking proportions. “The homes we design are intentionally enigmatic so they can’t be easily read on first sighting,” says Marsh. “Architecture is meant to be something that unfolds in front of you.”
As groundbreaking today as when it was built, the boundary-pushing Gottlieb House (1990) was unlike anything suburban Melbourne had seen at the time. Eschewing typical conventions of what residential design should be, the house is governed by the interplay of space, light and form. Wood Marsh describes the mass of abstract, intersecting volumes and avant-garde arrangement as “a distinctive object that nonetheless entirely fulfils its domestic requirements as a family home.”
The same concept is embodied in their multi-award-winning Towers Road House (2019) in Toorak, with its winding path framed by monumental concave concrete ‘curtain’ walls that meander along the sloping property. Capped with an oversized zinc disc roof reminiscent of a flying saucer, the seemingly impenetrable monolith opens into an unexpectedly dramatic, double-height corridor that is “almost a religious experience,” says Marsh. In response to the client brief, adequate space was made for the owner’s art collection in specially integrated galleries on the ground floor.
Described by Wood Marsh as “an artistic architectural response to Australia’s coastline and the contours of the rural landscape,” coastal Victorian residence Peninsula House (2023) sits nestled between grazing pastures, vines and the rugged drama of Bass Strait in Flinders. Curved surfaces have been designed to capture shifts in light and shadow, while the dark exterior material palette of charred timber and rammed earth contribute to its enigmatic presence, presenting what Marsh terms a “dramatic sculptural relic.” Artistic influences are also evident in Wood Marsh’s Domain Road Apartments (2014) in South Yarra, where robust scale and delicate detail draw reference from the distinctive geometric arrangements of Dutch abstract artist Mondrian and US conceptual artist Sol LeWitt.
When it comes to art, many of Wood Marsh’s clients have significant existing and evolving collections. Carving out space for complementary pieces is a process that Wood Marsh works on with private advisor, curator and gallerist Murray White. White’s eponymous Melbourne gallery, Murray White Room, was designed by Wood Marsh in 2006, establishing their longterm working relationship.
“My role is working with small, moveable things, and as architects, they focus on the grand scale,” explains White, who has consulted with the firm on countless projects over the past two decades. “But there’s a continuity of ideas and a respectful dialogue between us. For me, working with Roger and Randal on private homes is a match made in heaven.”
Their most recent collaboration—the renovation of a baroque apartment in Paris’ 4th arrondissement (2023)—involved preserving the historically significant architectural elements with contemporary insertions while thoughtfully integrating pieces from the Australian owners’ large collection of First Nations and international art.
“The client and I worked out where the gaps were, commissioned site-specific pieces and curated his existing collection, all the while with Wood Marsh’s head of interior architecture, Marco Zerbi, beside us, backing us up with visual renders of the apartment.” He adds: “There’s always a very respectful dialogue, and the fact that we could do it remotely at the height of Covid lockdowns was extraordinary,” explains White, who also engaged a curator from the Centre Pompidou for the award-winning pied-à-terre.
In a departure from the apartment’s minimal decor and monochromatism, the dining room has been wrapped in a striking salmon hue to complement the building’s original 17th-century murals, a careful process that involved meticulous restoration by experts from the Louvre. The result—a home that balances French classicism with modern amenities and the integration of contemporary art—is demonstrative of Wood Marsh’s prowess not just in the new, but also in the enhancement and betterment of the existing.
White also collaborated with the architects Wood Marsh on Melbourne restaurant Kisumé (2017), which involved curating a collection of photographs by the celebrated Australian-born, US-based artist Polly Borland. Among them is an edition of Borland’s iconic Untitled (Portrait of Nick Cave in a blue wig) 2010—perfectly placed for visibility from the street through a circular window portal. The restaurant also houses a series of provocative works by renowned Japanese photographer and artist, Nobuyoshi Araki that provide a potent response to the client’s obsession with beauty and sensuality.
Of Melbourne’s many urban architectural icons, Wood Marsh’s Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA) is one of the city’s most celebrated. Showcasing their deftness for creating buildings with a strong connection to place, the multi-use facility references the once-ubiquitous warehouses and foundries of the location’s industrial past. Clad in robust Corten steel, the building’s patinated skin is at odds with its interiors. Described by Wood Marsh as “a sculpture in which to exhibit art,” ACCA (2002) subverts the contemporary ideal of a shiny gallery with right-angled walls designed for the display of visual art; its atypical arrangement instead made up of faceted, collapsing planes and a discrepancy in ceiling heights. Yet pragmatically, it still successfully supports a broad range of exhibition spaces and even extends to the landscape beyond with a central courtyard and link to the adjacent arts precinct.
Wood and Marsh have described the building’s earthy, austere cladding and flat ground plane as “rock-like,” as though gradually exposed over the years by erosion.
This same sentiment and lack of ornamentation are evident in other projects, most notably the Australian Pavilion at World Expo Shanghai (2010), a sparse, undulating building in weathered steel evoking the land forms of the outback. White says it’s yet another example of Wood Marsh effortlessly breaking the mould. “Even though their work contributes to the grand dialogue of modernism, they always bring something new—without trying too hard. They really take it to another level in dimension and form.”
Throughout their four decades in business, Wood and Marsh have always been conscious of their responsibility to the community at large. “Freeways, universities, bridges—it’s all architecture for the people and should make a positive contribution to the state,” says Marsh. “We have an obligation that what we’re designing will be stimulating for the public.”
Even 15 years after construction, infrastructure projects such as the 39-kilometre-long EastLink Freeway still invite discussion. With its concrete corridor of fractured graphic ribbons and additional “furniture” by way of tolling gantries, tunnel portals, bridges and a selection of public art, the roadscape was “intended to be an experience, rather than just a routine car ride,” Wood says.
Of the various works that line the tollway, Melbourne artist Callum Morton’s high-rise model of a hotel in an empty field still generates the most buzz. Comprising multiple oversized works, it has long been described as an open air sculpture park. “A lot of kids may never have seen a sculpture before,” says Marsh. “The idea was to design something that would encourage debate and commentary; I think that’s why [it]has been so successful.”
Regardless of the context, it’s a sentiment that Wood Marsh espouses across all typologies. “Anyone can drive past and enjoy a building. Even a private home can be viewed as public art. We strive to make buildings that challenge people. That’s our philosophy, and it will never change. It’s in the Wood Marsh DNA.”
