During my high school years I lived next door to Pedro Roos, a prominent South African modernist architect.

He gave me a copy of Tom Wolfe’s “From Our House To Bauhaus’ inspiring me to consider a career in architecture. My early involvement with anti-apartheid activism resulted in a short notice relocation to Tasmania where I began my architectural studies and then completed the degree at RMIT in Melbourne.  Through my student years I worked for John Wardle’s emerging architectural practice in his office and on site. My career followed an unusual path as I was able to return to South Africa through the amnesty negotiated by Nelson Mandela’s release. There I became very involved in music during the ‘struggle’ years. I returned to Australia in 1996 to study music at the VCA. It was in 2000 that I was offered a partnership at ITN Architects and this 10 year gap between study and practice allowed me a unique perspective on the discipline of architecture. Our firm has by now completed hundreds of projects.

I am glad of my role as architect for a new civic building called the Indlovu Centre in Khayelitsha, an informal settlement near Cape Town in South Africa.

I worked on this pro-bono project together with Lani Fender. Communication was mainly by means of email and skype and travel to the site at commencement to mark out locations and again at completion to inspect the first civic building in an informal settlement of a few million people. We were asked to provide a community centre, clinic, learning centre and a soup kitchen. The brief required a fire-proof building of three storeys to make neighbourhood watch possible, toilet facilities without plumbing and that it should be a bulletproof refuge due to regular township violence. There was an almost non-existent budget, and it was to be built by the locals without constructions skills or in some cases even schooling. A sandbag and hand-made truss building system was developed where the community sowed and filled the bags and were taught basic construction technique. This project allowed me to re-engage with a place I had left behind and provided an opportunity to ‘give back’ to a community in need.

Although I am been fortunate to have fabulous clients who are prepared to consider adventurous architectural proposals, some of the more exciting work has been possible through property development.

The Hive Graffiti Apartment development in Carlton allowed me to push the usual design boundaries and it has now gained some notoriety for its integration of street art and architecture. There is a tension in the composition where graffiti exists without paint and an ephemeral art is expressed in concrete, a ‘wild style’ letter E holds up four storeys of building.

The End To End complex, currently under construction in Collingwood follows up on this urban theme by integrating three current model Hitachi Met trains at rooftop level. Our office also has exciting projects in the planning stage, many of which have been designed using retro-fitted shipping containers as another way to repurpose objects and materials.

For more information: www.itnarchitects.com