Architect as Client: Inside Casa Piva, Andrew Piva’s Inward-Looking Melbourne Home.

What happens when an architect finally becomes his own client? It usually goes one of two ways. Either the house turns into a manifesto, loud with every idea that never survived a client meeting, or it heads in the opposite direction—inward, personal, almost shy. Casa Piva, the home of B.E. Architecture director Andrew Piva, is very much the latter.

Set off a quiet laneway in Malvern East, in Melbourne’s south-east, the house gives almost nothing away. The white brick façade is austere and nearly windowless, and the way in is a modest door. It’s a deliberately understated start.

With Piva as both architect and client, the brief turned inward. The question wasn’t how the house should look, but how its spaces could nourish and support the family’s everyday rituals. The plan answers with a series of inward-looking courtyards wrapped around the house, forming a cocoon against the neighbours. Beyond the laneway door sits a large enclosed forecourt paved in granite cobblestone, with two trees growing up through an aperture in the roof.

From here, a single arch leads into a run of compressed, low-lit rooms that stage the arrival. The kitchen is the first hint of warmth. Past it, the larger internal courtyard is slowly revealed, its hard landscaping softened by planting allowed to establish over time, and the living spaces open out to daylight. We love when a house makes its occupants earn the view, and this one takes its time.

Inside, brick, timber and travertine set a mood the studio describes as reminiscent of an older time and place (the owners’ Italian heritage is felt throughout). The joinery is detailed to read as individually crafted furniture, with its grain turned in different directions for deliberate variation. In the study, kitchen and main ensuite, whole rooms are lined in antique oak, with every functional element folded in.

Against the rational architecture, the softer layers have been gathered over time. An oversized plaster ring bird light hangs in the living room, and Perspex tables display books. Both were custom designed rather than sourced. The sofa wears vintage Missoni fabric.

A softly detailed stair rises beneath a skylight to the private rooms above, pulling light down into the entry. References from different places and periods are threaded through, but quietly, left open to interpretation. For a home that is essentially an architect in conversation with himself, that restraint feels exactly right.

[Images courtesy of B.E. Architecture. Builder: JGF Creative Builders. Photography: Timothy Kaye.]