I always knew I wanted to work somewhere in the creative world. Growing up in New Zealand, architecture felt incredibly present—I was fascinated by the rural landscape, the empty houses, and dilapidated, run-down old buildings. I really wanted to be involved in this world.

I was also drawn to interiors and furniture, an influence that came directly from my family: my mother was an interior designer who created both interiors and stage sets, and my father was in the furniture business. The dialogue between a building and its contents has always been very much part of my history.

We start by looking deeply at the site and its history—this is one of our primary guides. The other, of course, is the client’s vision. We dig into this vision, almost in an archaeological sense, to find its roots. 

This leaves us with two parallel areas. One is the existing condition, our response to it, and our dreams as architects. The other is the client’s vision, along with their needs and aspirations. At the beginning of a project, we tend to keep these two parts separate and develop them as different facets of the same thing, which ultimately makes them stronger. When you finally bring them together, they create a much more meaningful dialogue.

We avoid the word “style” when talking about architecture. Architecture tends to be far more interested in space and geometry; those are our core motivators. If style exists, perhaps it has more to do with language—but language mutates over time, shifting as an architect’s practice evolves and as new creative problems emerge.

While architectural language changes, the fundamentals of geometry and space do not. We have always been extremely interested in geometry, both in a two-dimensional and three-dimensional spatial sense. It is at the heart of our experimentation, whether structural, spatial, or expressed through a building’s facade. 

Ultimately, our approach is conceptual; we are driven by finding a central story or theme that generates the project.

My favorites tend to shift depending on what is occupying my mind at any given time. However, some of the projects that have really motivated me as an architect are poetic works with a strong conceptual aspect. Works that talk to their sites and programs.

I’m thinking of the work of numerous architects… Kazuo Shinohara, a Japanese architect who has designed some of the most remarkable houses in the world; if you know our work, you would understand his, and vice versa. Then there are the classics like Alvar Aalto, who was such an incredible source for the last century of architecture. I am also drawn to more idiosyncratic figures like Sigurd Lewerentz. We visited his work years ago and were deeply moved, but this work remains on the margins of architectural discourse because it is not easy to digest. We tend to appreciate these kinds of “loners” whose smaller, poetic oeuvres are profoundly important without being universally acclaimed.

Beyond formal architecture, I was incredibly inspired growing up by the “bach” architecture of post-war New Zealand. This was architecture without architects—built without permits, off-grid, and with the complete freedom to do whatever the owner wanted. While much of it has disappeared, you can still find it along the coasts and rivers. This “no-architecture” had a big impact on me because of its liberty and the total absence of an audience. Architects often feel they need an audience, but perhaps the work would go deeper and be more rigorous if they stopped thinking about one. This kind of vernacular architecture can be found all over the world—built for pure functionality, pleasure, and freedom.

Among contemporaries, Frank Gehry found a rare kind of liberty that still touches a lot of the architectural world today.