"Life is too short for bad coffee."- Anonymous

I like different buildings for different reasons, I wouldn't say that I have a style, not to mention that "style" is a dirty word in architecture. It's more about how I approach the problem that's presented by the client and the site. The client is so important to the final outcome, clients often think that they need to do the designing but would you take a car to a mechanic and tell them what to do? Similarly, a client who says design me a house won't get a good outcome either as it's the conversation between client and designer that produces the best outcomes, that is what the design process is, one long conversation and the finished building is the record of that conversation "with every good building, there was a very good client.” Mies van der Rohe.

I think that my aesthetics can best be understood by understanding. "Why do I do what I do?"

1. "Life is too short for bad coffee."- Anonymous

Damn straight! Just about every person who likes coffee would agree to that. But what does this mean? Life is short and meant to be lived, it should be filled with beauty, wonder, laughter, friends, family, stories, art and music. It shouldn't be filled with mediocrity and yet, the McDonalds drive through is filled with people waiting for exactly that.

Now that we've all agreed to that, the conversation then goes to "what is good coffee?" and everyone has an idea about what that is exactly.

If we accept that life is too short for bad coffee, then what does that mean for our homes?

Your home is the biggest expense of your life. Most of your waking life is spent paying for it, or preparing to pay for it, or cleaning it.

I would say that "Life is too short for bad houses"

So that's the why but the thing that informs the planning of a building is the "What am I trying to?"

2. “Eventually everything connects – people, ideas, objects. The quality of the connections is the key to quality per se.” – Charles Eames

Now different things are important to different people and finding out what is important to clients, is what the whole design process is. Finding out what they think good coffee is and then serving it.

Whatever it is that a person thinks makes a good house, what it eventually comes down to, is how that person connects to those things.

A client that loves books will be different house to a client that loves footy. A client that likes entertaining, will be different to a client that doesn't. Looking for ways to provide those connections with the things that are important to the client is what gives the house material and form.

What the client chooses to connect to and how they prioritise those connections is the central focus of the design process but this must also be seen within the larger societal context and ethical behaviour. My approach always attempts to provide these important connections but also to connect to the outside world. If we don't connect to the outside world, if we don't connect to our immediate environment, then we will never be able to connect to the wider environment. If we don't connect to the genius loci of the place that we chose to inhabit, then environmental issues will always be seen as something that doesn't affect our day to day life. It will always be something over there, apart from ourselves, locked behind a high fence. I don't know about you but I don't want to live in a world that doesn't have a platypus, or a tapir, or a proboscis monkey living in the wild. Those things are weird.

I would say that "Your house should show the things that are important to you and the environment is important to all of us "

So that's the "what", which informs where things are in relationship to each other but the "how" informs why the building looks like it does "How am I trying to do this?"

3. “A house is a machine for living in” - Le Corbusier

When Le Corbusier, one of the fathers of modernism, wrote Toward an Architecture in the 1920's, he coined the phrase “A house is a machine for living in” and it contained his manifesto Five Points of Architecture. Based upon this treatise, he produced probably the most well-known of all of his buildings and possibly the most well known residence of any architect, the Villa Savoye. This was a building so futuristic, that if it was built today, many people would say that it's too modern for their taste. This building is almost one hundred years old now and to see original sepia toned photos taken of it, with open top vintage cars and ladies in their best roaring twenties attire, is shocking. This house was seen to influence the Farnsworth House by Mies Van Der Rohe and the Glass House by Phillip Johnson. You know that these houses are important because Lego made sets for two of them.

Every shitty square box building that you see is copying these projects, whether they know it or not. And they are doing it poorly.

When Corbusier wrote this, he envisioned that, not only would a house be something that was designed to serve the needs of the occupant but also that it would be designed using the new products of the machine age this would mean that the house not only functions like a machine but appears as one too.

What I take from modernism, is not the appearance but the notion that your home should serve your needs. It should meet your needs.

Basic needs

Your house should provide for your physiological needs and be warm in the winter and cool in the summer and provide rest. It should provide your safety needs of security and safety. These needs are best achieved broadly by solar orientation, passive ventilation, prospect and refuge.

You don't need air conditioning, you occasionally need heating, you don't need walls, when a fence will do, you don't need a fence when a hedge will do.

"Less is More" Mies van der Rohe

Physiological needs

Your house should provide a sense of belongingness. A home that provides opportunities to share time with friends and family is a home that allows spaces to expand as needed. A cabin in the woods is lovely, as long as you don't want anyone coming to visit. It should provide your esteem needs of prestige and accomplishment. Accomplishment is attained by doing things of quality, not quantity and quality cannot be attained without hard work.

I hate the phrase forever house, they're all forever houses. The idea of spending all that money on something that I don't care about is crazy.

I hate the phrase tiny house, all houses should be no bigger than they need to be. The point is to work out how much we need.

"Less but better"- Dieter Rams

Self-fulfilment needs

Your house should provide the opportunity to attain self actualisation. A home that has provided opportunities for one’s fundamental needs must also strive to support self actualisation. Whilst self actualisation can only come from within, the house must be able to support the process. Nobody learns to paint in a windowless basement.

So your house, your home, should be primarily designed to support your needs. And understanding the needs of the client is what the whole design process is.

“If I had an hour to solve a problem I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and five minutes thinking about solutions.” - Albert Einstein

4. "Simpsons did it" - South Park

The process of design is based heavily on historical precedents.

In the episode of South Park "Simpsons Already did it" Butters thinks up a series of schemes to take over the world, but is constantly frustrated when he realises that each one has already been performed on the show The Simpsons. Design is different. Knowing that someone else has done it saves time and effort, so precedents and architectural history are vital to the design process. The final design may not look like what someone's idea of a house is but it looks like a house that has been built somewhere before.

5. “The question is not what you look at, but what you see.”― Henry David Thoreau

Where does an opening sit in a room, how big is it? These decisions are informed by the lens through which I see the design process.

Views are nice but what is it that we are looking at when we see a setting sun, or a vast expanse of ocean? We are seeing our place in the world. We are seeing something bigger than ourselves. This is the thing that I try to connect to when I design. This is the lens through which all of my decisions are made. How do I connect to something that's more than myself.

6. "If it's not beautiful, it's not architecture." - Peter Stutchbury

But what's beauty? Beauty comes through understanding and beauty takes time. Beauty can be discovered anywhere and it comes from our senses.

Beauty does not lie in the eye of the beholder, what makes a thing beautiful can be understood and stated and supported. It is a thing of the mind.

7. “The sun never knew how great it was until it hit the side of a building.” - Louis Kahn

One of the biggest differences that you will see between photographs of buildings and photographs of architecture is that there is always a focus on how light is used in architectural photography.

How do we use that sun? Is it a soft glow, is it a reflected light, is it the setting sun or is it the finger of god pointing from the heaven? Does it come from multiple directions? How is shadow used? The consideration of where light comes from, what qualities it has and the surface that it hits are things that clients will never ask for and are difficult to illustrate before construction but which will provide the atmosphere of a room, more than any other element.

8. “Common sense is what tells us the earth is flat.” - Stuart Chase

Logical and rational understanding of a problem can provide some strange outcomes in the world of science and this is true of architecture as well.

If your building meets your needs and is of its place, then how can it ever look like someone else's? Sometimes the things that make a building look weird are the things that make it beautiful.

9. “The evolution of culture marches with the elimination of ornament from useful objects.” - Adolf Loos

Decoration takes away from buildings. It's trying to make a building something that it's not. What would you think of a person who tries to be something that they are not? Why is it any different to buildings?

Visual interest is provided by light, form, material, structure and a view.

10. "I want to make beautiful things, even if nobody cares, as opposed to ugly things. That's my intent" - Saul Bass

A clients brief is a living document, it's a lot like a kids Christmas wish list. As much as you attempt to make everything fit and work, sometimes it's simply not possible and it should be seen as a list of priorities instead of a list of deliverables. But whilst the brief is the brief and this can change, the budget IS the budget.

Building is expensive and I will always try to make something beautiful. I will always aim to create the most beautiful building that I can. If I'm not trying to make something beautiful, then what am I worth?

11. "Design is nothing but a humble understanding of materials, a natural instinct for solutions and respect for nature" B.V. Doshi

Materials that I select should be natural wherever possible. Natural materials age whereas man made materials wear. I remember being in the colosseum in Rome and seeing the footprints worn in stone stairs and feeling connected to every person who had ever been there. I felt connected to the man walking home from the games 2000 years ago . I see a scratch on a laminate bench and I think who was the little prick who did that.

By selecting natural materials, I can select materials that are made nearby. I put money in the pockets of my neighbours, rather than an oil company. This makes me richer.

By selecting materials that are made nearby, I know that they suit the climate and conditions. Nothing suits the building location like materials born from that location.

12. "Every time I imagine a garden in an architectural setting, it turns into a magical place. I think of gardens I have seen, that I believe I have seen, that I long to see, surrounded by simple walls, columns, arcades or the facades of buildings – sheltered places of great intimacy where I want to stay for a long time." Peter Zumthor

The more I get involved in architecture, the more I become interested in gardens.

I don't understand why people who would love to run away to a log cabin in the woods build the biggest building they can on their block. A building surrounding a garden does the same thing. Long views of mountains and valleys are hard to find but anyone can have a beautiful view of their own garden.

13. “One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.”― Helen Keller

Your home should seek to create moments of joy through the unexpected, a glimpsed view, a shaft of light, a beautifully framed tree.

14. "To pace about, looking to obtain status looking to attain "importance" - I can think of nothing more ridiculous" - Soren Kierkegaard

Humans are social animals, we often do things for reasons that we don't fully understand. It's possible to create spaces with impact but they should never be spaces of bragging or attempting to match the status of the Joneses.

So there we go, if I had to describe my ideal house it would be a house that encouraged a cooling breeze in summer, the windows and doors would almost always be open and when they were closed there'd be a fire. It would be almost impossible to determine if I was inside or outside. I'd look into the lush garden and hear my kids playing and the birds singing and smell the nearby beach. I'd have a great relationship with my neighbours and my family would have all of the big family events at my house because it's the only house that fits everyone. It's a small house made from locally sourced materials and when the new moon rises I can see it through a tree in the garden. I'd recognise elements that I knew from other houses whilst being entirely my own and the colours of the sunset would fill the inside every afternoon.

It would be deeply of its place and would feel like no other place on earth.