The Architects
Three of Australia’s leading architectural practices lent their vision to the Brick Masterclass.
Bricklayers are entrusted with the responsibility of bringing an architect’s vision into life, so with the intention of fostering greater understanding and collaboration between the two necessary sides of the process, the architects worked with Masterclass participants in projects turning design into reality.
Terrior
TERROIR was established in 1999 by Founding Directors Gerard Reinmuth, Scott Balmforth and Richard Blythe as the result of conversations between these three former colleagues from University about the need for greater emphasis on research in practice in Australian architecture. The practice has since grown to a talented team of 25 which includes both enthusiastic young designers and experienced architects.
A strong relationship between these three individuals fuelled an ambition to develop a practice underpinned by a culture of creativity through research. These core values have proved successful given the regard with which the practice is now held in a number of contexts.
TERROIR are “architect’s architects” given the support the practice receives from the professional bodies and the academy both here and overseas. The practice is also known as a responsible commercial entity which places program and budget parameters at the centre of every design research activity and thus can be trusted to deliver. This is borne out in the number of repeat clients emerging in the commercial arena.
Finally, the ethics of the practice have instilled in clients the confidence necessary to entrust to them the responsibility of working in places of high heritage or landscape values. TERROIR have become specialists in difficult projects in high profile locations. Since inception, TERROIR has established a strong reputation at both a national and international level.
Choi Ropiha
Choi Ropiha was founded in 2000 following John Choi and Tai Ropiha’s win in the international competition for the re-design of the TKTA booth in Times Square, New York.
The project is widely acclaimed fir the way the design provided public and private benefits while simultaneously strengthening the essential character of Times Square, and it has been this ability to find solutions that work at multiple levels that now characterizes the way in which he practice of Choi Rophia approaches their projects.
Whilst this ‘big picture’ approach gives clarity to the practice’s strategic thinking, the practice also endeavours to match this logic with a parallel ambition to find evocative outcomes of unexpected delight.
Innovarchi
Innovarchi is an international collaboration between unique, enthusiastic and passionate individuals offering a range of experiences from diverse professional backgrounds. Innovarchi believes that the best results are achieved through the rigorous testing of multiple ideas in a studio environment. We see our company as an idea factory, generating project-specific ideas to design problems. Innovative solutions are fostered through and environment that vales fresh ideas, allowing individual input, and team development.
Innovarchi designs from first principles, approaching each project without pre-conceived ideas, rather, by carefully researching the unique nature of the project to achieve the best possible result. By utilizing a highly advanced set of multi-disciplinary animation programmes, physical models, prototypes, and ad-hoc inventions relative to the task at hand, a project can be visualized continuously from concept to construction. These tools become part of the creative process to help develop more complex ideas that facilitate a simultaneous design and development process, avoiding the restraints typically associated with linear processing in a static 2D environment.
