Thank you for visiting my blog. You can click on the buttons above or on the pictures to the right to navigate through my portfolio of work. I hope that these images are some idea of my passion for livable Architecture.
I first qualified with a Bachelor of Architectural Studies after studying at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. I then traveled through much of Europe with fellow students for six weeks, lived and worked in London for almost a year before returning to complete my professional training and Bachelor of Architecture.
Thinking back, my time spent in London was undoubtedly the most influential period in terms of life experience and exposure to design. While there I worked with a team drawing an interior fitout for British Airways at Heathrow Airport. As an addition to the project, I designed the entrance to the First Class lounge and it was a great thrill to have my first ‘own’ design built in the UK. I initiated the project, liaised with the BA project manager, concluded the design and produced shopfitter’s drawings.
Working in a large commercial Johannesburg Architect’s Office, I gained experience on large retail and residential projects before qualifying and registering as a Professional Architect in South Africa. My long held dream was realized when I left formal employment to start my own solo practice, which I enjoyed running for over eight years. After experiencing a period of personal tragedies, including an unexpected divorce, I finally emigrated to Sydney Australia to settle with my lovely new Australian wife. Blissfully content, I am now the proud father of my first born, a constantly smiling baby boy.
My design philosophy, despite my being a product of a late modernist school of architecture, leans towards the intuitive rather than focussing exclusively on cold rational planning. Surely there has to be more to architecture than just drawing functional buildings. To me the challenge is all about orchestrating spaces, creating a sense of place.
Sydney is a fascinating city, a mosaic of the beautiful and the banal; the sophisticated and the ordinary. Beautiful tree lined streets of modest, character-filled federation cottages are too often rudely interrupted by looming 60s, 70s and 80s high-rise blocks of cheaply built flats. As an aside, it is ironic just how unaffordable these boxes are today, quite in contrast to the original architectural movement’s socialist principles. It is true that modernism has left its legacy but look a little closer and you will find beautiful pockets within suburbs that are now jealously guarded by their councils against rogue developers.
It is tragic that high-density living has taken on such a poor image within a thriving city when there are many surviving examples of how to create multi unit buildings with character. Still ever popular as a housing option, the arts & crafts and art deco periods blessed us with domestic scale apartment buildings that have survived the ravages of time, like gracious old ladies, polite and welcoming.
Angela and I love our home in the dark brick 30s building where we live. It stands proudly beside a federation semi on the one side, forming a bookend to a street of heritage cottages. There are only four apartments sharing an entrance lobby, small enough to encourage neighbours to acknowledge one another in passing. Carefully detailed, hooded windows keep an eye on who comes and goes in the street below. Pretty lead glass panes carefully screen the private interior from view. We love living in our home with its corridor, separate rooms, original little bathroom, tiny kitchen, ornate ceilings and wooden floors.Neighbouring on the other side, an awful 70s block stands parked, oblivious to its context, glass sliding doors displaying their occupants’ private lives to the street like shop fronts. Hiding desperately behind curtains are the lives of humans in their most vulnerable condition. Across the street stand similar edifices to 60s indifference.
Thankfully, perhaps due to strict planning legislation or perhaps as a result of a more discerning contemporary market, newcomers to the streets of Sydney are on the whole more positive contributors. Perhaps developers and architects care more now, whatever the case, no one can argue with the outcomes. To quote the outspoken master architect, Frank Lloyd Wright: “A doctor can bury his mistakes but an architect can only advise his clients to plant vines.” I have no doubt that, had it not been for the fact that many towers were strata owned, the citizens of Sydney would have them imploded (like Pruitt Igoe in St Louis) and replaced by more pleasant buildings.
In my mind, an education in architecture is as much about experiencing life and learning from visiting places as it is about learning from books. Every young student of architecture has their own library of travels and experiences, mine was highly influenced by a love of medieval European Villages. I had, from an early age, been privileged to visit many places in Europe, accompanying my mother who was keen to impart on me her love of France in particular. My father on the other hand, always the dedicated farmer, was attached to the African land, which is where, when we were not traveling or visiting my mother's family in England, I had my first experiences of building. Winter seasons were comparatively mild and dry in Africa, allowing the ideal opportunity for erecting sheds and extensions to the family home.
university years were largely spent under the influence of tutors and lecturers partial to Le Corbusier, the Bauhaus and later, in particular, Rem Koolhaas. Never a blind follower, I favored the work of Frank Lloyd Wright and (later) Frank Gehry, but mostly my own interpretations. In contrast to what I perceived as purely rational architecture, I found creative refuge in works that focused on texture and human scale. The majority of my studio projects ended up being different from the group, sometimes acknowledged and rewarded with distinction, sometimes not.
Throughout my career I have continued to seek out interesting and personally rewarding projects. The reality of commercial life is that one has to earn a living and it is rare that architects are able to claim to have done only their own preferred work. Alas, it is one of the laws of architectural practice that a project is as successful as its client is willing. Perhaps it is wishful thinking, but I consider myself quite fortunate in this regard. The majority of my projects, although almost exclusively built to a tight budget, each present a memorable and rewarding journey. The challenge in my mind, is to rise to the occasion, to adapt and to bring the creative energy to unlock the hidden potential within every project. More than drawing buildings, the reward lies in creating appropriate places, which promise to endure cherished in the lives of the community.
