For me, architecture is about improving communities. There’s a sense of great satisfaction when a design goes beyond responding to a client’s brief, when it also resonates with the people who experience it.

- Mark Loughnan, HASSELL principal and joint head of architecture

Throughout my career, I have always wanted to create functional places that people love being in. The designs I’m most proud of are those that work on different levels; as places to experience and enjoy, and as concepts for discussion, contemplation or debate.

Our winning design for the redevelopment of Flinders Street Station is a project I really enjoyed.

In 2013, the State Government held a $1 million competition to come up with concepts for the redevelopment of Flinders Street Station. HASSELL collaborated with Swiss design firm Herzog & de Meuron (HdM) – and our design won. The scale of this project was something I couldn’t have imagined when I graduated. I finished my degree in 1991, in the middle of a recession. Many who graduated with me ended up driving taxis or moving into different careers – sometimes forever. After five years of study, it was very disheartening. When I did find a job, I worked long hours for little pay. To make things worse, the business was struggling. After I wasn’t paid for a month, and the sheriff started visiting the office, I quit. The experience didn’t do a lot for my faith in the profession.

I had grown up spending winters in the snow, and volunteering with the ski patrol at Mt Buller, so I decided to try something different and headed overseas. In the French Alps I worked as a dishwasher and a ski guide, and my girlfriend Fiona (who is now my wife) and I ran a 16-guest chalet. After spending some time exploring Europe, we eventually headed to Vancouver, Canada. Working visa in hand, I successfully door knocked for work as an architect. It was a good arrangement for someone who loves skiing.

I have now been at HASSELL, in Melbourne, for about seven years; after spending seven years with HdM in Switzerland, and five with Denton Corker Marshall (DCM) in Melbourne. Seeing and experiencing life in countries and cultures around the world is invaluable for someone in my profession. I have lived in France, England, Canada, the USA and Switzerland, and have also spent time in China for my work with HASSELL. If you’ve been exposed to a range of cities and approaches, you’re less likely to be set in your ways and can access a much broader range of solutions than if you’ve always done everything one way.

My preference for exploring all the options is something I probably learned from my father.

He worked as a doctor until he was 85 and was possibly one of the last few 24-hour on-call doctors. He was very much his own character. He was direct and had no interest in small talk, but he was also caring, with a gentle heart and an open mind. I remember him saying that these days “there’s one doctor for the right nostril and one for the left”. He felt being too focused, too specialised, could mean not seeing the overall picture – the one that matters most. This perspective has certainly helped shape my thinking.

Working as an international architect, I’ve seen projects I’ve been involved in being built in cities around the world, including the de Young Museum, San Francisco (HdM), the Melbourne Exhibition Centre, Melbourne (DCM), a residential complex at 40 Bond Street, New York (HdM), a retail, residential, dining and parking complex at 1111 Lincoln Road, Miami (HdM), and the University of Queensland’s Advanced Engineering Building, Brisbane (HASSELL).

What those outside the profession may not realise is only perhaps less than 20 per cent of our work is ever realised.

Take our winning design for Flinders Street Station. It’s a project I think the HASSELL and HdM team should be extremely proud of. But we don’t know if the project will ever be built, and a decision is a probably a while away yet. Our design was, to me, a meaningful and respectful interpretation of the site – it transformed the station into a desirable destination. As well as restoring the original, historic buildings and opening them to the public, our vision included an art gallery, a marketplace, a public plaza and an amphitheatre. A contemporary and indigenous art gallery at Flinders Street Station makes sense, as this site holds an important place in indigenous life and culture. The gallery would also bring the station into the city’s arts precinct which includes the nearby National Gallery of Victoria (St Kilda Road), Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia and ACMI (Federation Square) and Immigration Museum (the old Customs House on Flinders Street).

While I’m confident I will one day stand in the marketplace we imagined for the site, wander through the art gallery, or simply catch a train from one of the new platforms, that day is probably a while away yet. But I am keeping an open mind. It’s fair to say my whole design philosophy is concerned with being open. Through working in so many places, and having been influenced and mentored in different ways, I prefer to approach design problems with an open mind, as opposed to trying to impose a preconceived solution. While there can be many right answers to a project, there are also definitely wrong answers. What’s interesting about that is, a wrong answer could be a space that is avoided, or simply ignored, while a right answer may be one that provokes strong opinions and robust debate, engaging people’s hearts and minds.

For me, that’s one of the joys of working in my profession: the process of finding – and building – answers that are right for their communities.

For more information: www.hassellstudio.com

Flinders Street Station imagery by Herzog & de Meuron