A bit about
who we are

Most clients only undertake a significant house project once or twice in their lives. It is a personal, expensive and often unfamiliar process, so the way it is managed matters as much as the design itself.

Dylan is upfront, organised, and a careful communicator. He keeps clients informed throughout the process, sets clear expectations, sticks to programs, and treats trust and frankness as central to how the studio operates.

Originally from New Zealand, Dylan brings a Kiwi sensibility to the work, grounded, unpretentious, and hard-working. He wants to do the best possible job on every project, and works hard to exceed what clients are expecting, not in the volume of output but in the care taken to get the right thing made.

The studio is known for its organised, communicative, and people-first approach. The goal isn't simply to design houses. It's to create homes that feel thoughtful, grounded, and genuinely supportive of daily life.

Every project is different, and every house deserves a different approach. The way we'd design a coastal mid-century home isn't the same as the way we'd design a Victorian terrace, a 1930s inter-war home, or a contemporary new build on an acreage block. Each one has its own history, construction detailing and the work begins with understanding that properly.

We spend a lot of time looking at buildings, and we obsess over the details. There's a reverence in the studio for traditional craftsmanship and the way things were built in earlier eras, not because we want to replicate them, but because understanding why something was made the way it was is how you find the ground to do something fresh. Without that knowledge its hard to create real innovation.

Maybe that comes partly from a New Zealand sensibility: taking that moment to really understand what is there, respect it, and then look for the opportunity to bring something fresh to the table. Something that still belongs, but gives it energy. Something alive.

We design architecture and interiors together, as one continuous, holistic consideration. They aren't two separate disciplines we hand off between, and they aren't a shell with an interior added in later. They're threaded together from the very first move.

When we design a room, we think about everything together: the quality of natural light at different times of day, where windows sit, how spaces connect to one another, whether a room is intended to feel social or quiet, where lighting and switches are positioned, and how the space supports the rhythms of daily life. Inside and outside, architecture and interior, light and layout, are all resolved as part of the same conversation.

That way of thinking also carries through to the practical mechanics of how a home is actually lived in day-to-day.

Kitchens are often the clearest example of this. We think carefully about how spaces actually function over many years of use: where things are stored, how preparation and clean-up happen, how people move through the room, where appliances sit, and how the space supports daily routines naturally and intuitively. We want spaces to feel effortless to live in, not just visually resolved.

That kind of thinking runs across the whole project, from council strategy and spatial planning at the beginning, through to atmosphere, materiality and light, right down to the detailed mechanics of how each space supports the people living inside it. It's a broad skill set, and it takes time to develop the depth to deliver across all of it well.

Practically, this means we work carefully and intentionally through each stage of the project. We aren't interested in producing fast concepts that haven't been properly resolved. We take the time required to think things through properly, communicate clearly, and deliver on the programs we set with clients. Done well, it produces homes that feel calm, enduring, and deeply connected to the people living in them.

• Registered Architect, Architects Registration Board of Victoria, No. 20631
• Master of Architecture (with Distinction). RMIT University
• Bachelor of Architecture. RMIT University
• Exchange. Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen

If you'd like the full detail on how we work, we'll send it to you. It covers the stages, fees, scope, scope-comparison matrix, and answers to the questions most clients ask before engaging us.

Enter your email below and we'll share the document.

If you'd like to discuss a project, the easiest first step is to send through a short note covering what you're thinking about, where the site is, and roughly when you'd like to start. We'll come back to arrange a call.

Email

hello@grovestudio.au

Location

Toorak, Melbourne

Instagram

@hellogrovestudio