2018 A. S. Hook Address
The A. S. Hook Address is the privilege and responsibility of the Australian Institute of Architects’ Gold Medallist – an honour bestowed on me in June 2018. In my case, this honour must be recognized in the context of the contribution of my colleagues over the past thirty-five years. Central to this recognition are my co-directors: Jonathan Evans, Ben Green, Mladen Prnjatovic and Chi Melhem. Together we have established the firm’s reputation. I also acknowledge the special contribution of our associate directors and their role in advancing our practice: George Korban, Bruce Chadlowe, Dijana Tasevska and Amy Dowse.
In this A. S. Hook Address, I will reflect on what we see as a distinctive design culture manifest by our design values, methodologies, workplace ethics and the relationships we forge with our clients. I will explore our way of thinking about design, the factors that shape our architectural expression and our engagement with some of the broader issues that face contemporary professional practice in support of a more sustainable future for the built environment.
Setting context
In 1979, Bryce Mortlock’s A. S. Hook Address went further than that of others to present a theory of aesthetics central to the production of all architecture and thereby positioned the role of the architect in society. He argued that the decision-making process of design centred on an aesthetic proposition conceived by the architect in relative isolation from other disciplines.
His proposition implies that the aesthetics of architecture are less a function of agreement between architect and community and more about architecture as artefact and its integrity in relation to a set of ideas conceived by the architect.
In our work, we posit that architecture, and, by extension, all design within the built environment, is no longer solely about the artefact in isolation. The design integrity of each new work, as articulated by Mortlock, is respected as a foundation principle of design excellence, and then is extended by placing new artefacts in a context
