Contemporary Australian
Architects Speaker Series

Auhaus is an architecture studio in Melbourne, founded in 2011 by Kate Fitzpatrick and Benjamin Stibbard. We design private houses on coastal, rural and urban sites, and we are there from the first conversation through to handover. Every project starts with the site, and with what the site will not allow. A house on an exposed dune is a different proposition to one in an established street and requires an entirely different design strategy. What they have in common is how they are made. They are built to take on the weather outside, and they turn inward to rooms that hold their warmth and slow you down. We work only on houses. That focus is deliberate. A house is a small building carrying an unusual number of decisions, and the distance between a good one and a very good one is almost always in the resolution, in a junction or a threshold or the way a door meets your hand. Some of what those details ask for does not exist yet, so we make it. Joinery hardware, lighting and fittings are drawn in the studio and fabricated locally. It began as a way to properly finish our own projects and has become part of the practice in its own right.

Visit Auhaus Architecture ↗

Neil Durbach, Camilla Block and David Jaggers, practising together as Durbach Block Jaggers Architects, stand as a significant and enduring voice in contemporary Australian architecture. For almost three decades, their work has demonstrated that architecture can be intellectually rigorous, deeply affecting and profoundly civic.

In recognising the creative partnership of Neil, Camilla and David, we acknowledge an extraordinary body of built work, and a practice that has shaped the expectations and ambitions of contemporary Australian architecture.

Neil, Camilla and David’s practice is defined by a steadfast commitment to the creative act. Their studio operates as a workshop of ideas: walls lined with large-scale models, shelves dense with books and collected objects. Theirs is a deliberate process that engages the entire team. Digital sketches inform drawings, drawings evolve into models that are continually reshaped, and these in turn inform drawings. This form of iterative exploration and making produces buildings of sculptural precision. It is a method that privileges invention over formula and insists that each project find its own formal and spatial logic.

That their determinedly compact studio produces such substantial work is instructive. By remaining small, they have preserved an intimacy of authorship, a rarity in contemporary practice for a studio that delivers projects of such breadth and scale. Those who have worked alongside them speak of both the intensity of their ideas and the rigour of engagement. Humour is integral to the dialogue, and that levity finds its way into the buildings themselves, structures that push against convention with grace and wit.

Their architecture is one of context, invention, learning and consideration, where buildings work to amplify the landscape setting. It exhibits a vitality that captures the playfulness of people and place. In doing so, the team has contributed decisively to a distinct Australian architectural language, one attuned to light, climate, topography, urban immediacy and cultural specificity.

Neil Durbach, Camilla Block and David Jaggers

The foundation of their processes lies in an exhaustive knowledge of architectural history, and while influences may be discerned, the works are never literal translations. Instead, they reflect an understanding of stories of making and construction, place and history, reinterpreted with originality and assurance.

Across typologies, their architecture balances imagination and rigour with assurance. Commonwealth Place (2002, with Sue Barnsley Design), the Olympic Amenities Buildings (1999, with Nick Murcutt) and the Brickpit Ring (2005, with Sue Barnsley Design) demonstrate an early and sustained commitment to public life, while more recent projects like the UTS Thomas Street Building (2014, in association with BVN; now the UTS Vicki Sara Building), the Omnia building (2018, with SJB), Newcastle’s Fabric House (2017), and the Roslyn Street office (2009), exhibit a powerful public presence recognised well beyond the profession.

These works are consistently placed among the finest contemporary buildings in their respective cities, tactile and engaging environments whose details invite contact and participation. Their homes, from the award-winning Foster Street Apartment (1998) to House Holman (2004) and Tamarama House (2015), are at once intimate and monumental. They demonstrate that the house can be both laboratory and sanctuary, a site of formal experimentation and spatial complexity, responsive to life, climate, terrain and garden.

As teachers, lecturers, curators and jurors, all three have enriched architectural discourse here and abroad. Within the studio, mentorship is embedded in daily practice, with a continuous exchange of ideas that has helped shape many respected practitioners. Their work continues to influence the way architecture is conceived and discussed in this country, positioning architecture closer to a broader understanding of what an Australian cultural expression might be.

In honouring Neil Durbach, Camilla Block and David Jaggers, we recognise that through their patience, intellectual depth, enduring ambition, and a sustained belief in architecture’s public purpose, they have created a practice together that has changed the Australian built environment for the better and elevated our collective understanding of the promise of what architecture can be.

Neil, Camilla and David’s work is one of beauty, delight and joy, with their contribution to our professional community an equal match.

Visit Durbach Block Jaggers ↗

Ben Walker Architects (bwa) was established by Ben Walker in Canberra in 2012, founded on a belief in the value of architecture that is considered, rigorous and deeply responsive to place. Over the past 14 years, bwa has established a strong body of work across the ACT and NSW, largely focusing on residential work, with a number of projects recognised in the Australian Institute of Architects awards program. The practice is driven by a continual exploration of how architecture can respond intelligently to its context, while balancing conceptual ambition with the practical demands of construction, materiality, and sustainability.

Rather than applying a predetermined architectural language, bwa approaches each project as a unique design proposition. Rigorous interrogation of the brief, site and broader conditions informs a process that seeks to uncover opportunities, refine ideas and develop architecture that is both highly resolved and purposeful. The resulting work is characterised by clarity, restraint and a strong attention to detail — architecture that is innovative without being arbitrary, practical without compromising design quality, and enduring in both its physical and conceptual expression. Visit Ben Walker Architects ↗

The studio is led by Architects Ellie Farrell + Brad Wray.

Ellie + Brad work collaboratively together on all projects and each have over 20+ years of industry working experience across a broad range of local and international award-winning projects.

Our previous experiences are highly complementary of one another and create a well-rounded body of knowledge and expertise in all aspects of projects.

We are flexible, experienced, collaborative and creative people who work hard to see our shared client and architect visions come to life.

Visit Farrellwray ↗