Vale James Birrell 24 October 1928 — 20 September 2019

James Birrell recalled playing on the sports fields along the Maribyrnong River, fascinated by the incinerator (designed by the offices of Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony) before he even knew what architecture was. But at high school, he did well in art, and despite an attempt to enrol in geology, found himself studying architecture at the end of World War II, first at the Melbourne Technical College and then at the University of Melbourne, with a cadetship from the Commonwealth Works Department. Roy Grounds was