On small practice with ...
Anita Panov/Andrew Scott: Please describe how you currently practise.
Clare Kennedy: Before Five Mile Radius, I worked in large practice, as did many of my collaborators. As my architectural experience grew, I became overwhelmed by the complexity of material detailing in projects: layer upon layer of different materials, glued, screwed and nailed together, with little concern placed on where they came from or how they might be taken apart and recycled. Five Mile Radius is, in many ways, a reaction to these questions and an honest investigation into better alternatives.
Kate Fitzgerald: Whispering Smith is a staunchly feminist architecture practice.
We’re actually quite staunch about a lot of things, like better design, more equitable and successful architectural businesses, and – sometimes –just architecture itself…
If something needs a champion, we’ll likely find ourselves strapping in at some point.
Jennifer McMaster: Like so many people, we are currently rewriting our studio’s biography. Normally, we work from a small shopfront in Darlinghurst, which is lovingly littered with samples, models and scraps of trace. Right now, we are working from our kitchen tables and learning to rebuild our practice via pixelated screens.
To uphold our studio’s principles, we conduct weekly design review sessions, where we all get to muck in and make suggestions. Beyond that, we trust people to think through problems independently and rigorously. We try to cultivate a working environment that gives space and slack, so there is room to create.
Ben Berwick: We have a number of adaptive re-use commercial and cultural projects underway, which aim to have as wide-reaching a positive effect within their community as possible – like a node – while being constructed using as little material as possible, oftentimes acting as a store for a large amount of recycled material. Our research with a number of universities looks at incredibly small-scale architecture – [something as small as] a window covering that focuses on energy generation and natural illumination [can have far-reaching impacts].
Our aim is to produce a product with as wide-reaching an effect, with as minimal intervention, as possible.
AP/AS: We would consider your practice, within the spectrum of practices, to be small. Could you please tell us why have you chosen to practise as you do?
Matthew Eagle: It was initially out of necessity: I had to start somewhere and we were just working on a small number of small extensions or new houses for young families – and continue to do so. As it has evolved, I have found [small practice] to be incredibly flexible and agile. It allows me to spend meaningful time with my young family, teach and still work on a range of different projects in a focused and thorough manner. We plan to stay at this size for the foreseeable future, as I have found [that] if we grew to be any larger, it would limit [our] capacity to focus on the process and rigour of outcomes. I view the practice as a long-term proposition; we are only young and have plenty of time to evolve.
Peter Stutchbury: A small practice may be designed as one that is able to manage
