Closing Time

John Cameron Architects (JCA) will be closing in 2025. After 34 years in practice, it is now time for me to move on to a new life phase and other pursuits. 

These past decades have flown by. It will take some adjustment for me to stop practicing. I have always identified as being an architect, not merely working as one. Architecture, for me, has been a calling as much as a profession. This unique blend of art and science is a truly captivating pursuit. I hope that I will never stop thinking like an architect; I just won’t be trying to make a living out of it anymore. 

Reflecting on the people, projects, and experiences of these past decades, there are so many wonderful memories and experiences to recall. Thank you to everyone who has been part of this amazing journey. 

In my first year at university, we were asked to speculate on what kind of legacy we wanted to create with our careers. This is such an important question to put to a budding architect because it sows the seeds of potential and also of the responsibility that comes with the title “architect.” My answer back then was that I wanted to be known and remembered for making a positive difference. I even had in mind that I might one day be written about in some future book on influential architects. Ah, so young, so naïve, so full of myself!

There will be no mention of John Cameron Architects in any books or histories of late twentieth or early twenty-first century architecture. I have rarely sought peer or public recognition. For me, it has been more important to focus on the needs of the client than the needs of the self. I realised eventually that these needs are not mutually exclusive and that it is certainly possible to satisfy a client while at the same time generating collateral for self-promotion. By the time I had figured that out, I had lost interest in seeking that kind of recognition.

Recognition is important, in fact essential, for anyone in a creative pursuit. The kind of recognition that kept me going was the kind that happens privately and is not played out in print or social media. For example, I once encountered a client in the street a year or so after completing their new house, and they told me that they had just come back a week early from their annual holidays because they missed their new home so much. That is the kind of recognition that truly validates creative and professional endeavours, I believe.

As a student at the School of Environmental Design in Canberra (1980–82) under Roger Johnson and with lecturers such as Tone Wheeler, my entrée to architecture was firmly grounded in concepts that later came to be known as “sustainability.” Architecture and the environment are intrinsically linked, we were taught. Understanding and respecting natural processes and systems makes for fundamentally better architecture, was the mantra. We must strive to make buildings that work with nature, not in defiance of it, not only because that will be better for the end users but also because there is an overriding obligation to society incumbent on all who aim to pursue Architecture. The capital A is intentional.

Working with nature became second nature for me. Understanding solar orientation, breeze paths, appropriate insulation, thermal mass, seasonal and diurnal cycles, biodiversity, and ecology was simply a given from the outset of any project. This way of working eventually resulted in JCA being awarded a commission to lead a team of architects for the development of an eco-tourism project adjacent to world heritage wilderness and RAMSAR listed wetlands on Noosa North Shore in Southeast Queensland. This project achieved independent recognition as world best practice in eco-tourism development by EarthCheck under their Green Globe certification programme in 2007. How does a little-known architect with a staff of two get to lead a team of “name” architectural practices working on a $A90 million project as part of a multi-disciplinary consultant team in a world heritage area? That’s a long story which started in my first year at university and resulted from the accumulation of several “right place at the right time” moments that generated the opportunity to pitch an integrated environmentally-driven design approach to a developer who needed to project such a commitment.

Spinning off from the Noosa project came an opportunity to work with the Australian Football League (AFL) on their Brisbane headquarters and Centre of Excellence at Yeronga. The Brisbane CEO and I sat down together to generate a graphical representation of his team and operations. After an hour or so and several sheets of butter paper, the CEO sat back and said that before now, he had never perceived his organisation with such clarity. The resultant brief was to wrap a building around that organisation to best enable people to achieve their goals. We implemented a couple of design strategies which raised eyebrows among a few of the senior staff. One person, in particular, was initially quite hostile to the loss of his corner office, but on the building opening day, I overheard him proudly explaining to a visiting dignitary how the lack of corner offices was an important way to democratise the workplace. That backflip was a nice validation that good design eventually stands on its merits.

The commission for The Spot Youth Hub was an out-of-the-blue moment. During the initial interview, I asked how JCA made it to the short list of three candidates. The answer was that somebody in their organisation had heard me speaking somewhere and, on the strength of that experience, wanted me shortlisted. I never did find out what speaking occasion they referred to, but it underlines the importance of putting it out there if you expect to be noticed.

The statement that clinched the Youth Hub commission for JCA was that we would only take it on if we had the opportunity to deeply engage with all stakeholders in a collaborative workshop environment. Workshopping the brief with a substantial stakeholder group turned out to be a monumental undertaking, but at the end of the process, we had a mandate to wrap a building around a highly complex collection of people and programmes.

The Spot was a faith-based non-denominational organisation that partnered with a diverse range of support agencies to deliver programmes for young people facing challenges in society. The brief for the building included a chapel, a café, a crèche, a dance studio, a recording studio, a radio station, an indoor rock-climbing gym, workshops, meeting rooms, counselling spaces, offices, and an auditorium. It was the most complex building brief I have ever worked with. The outcome was a building, unlike most others with similar clientele in the area, that was open and welcoming. Young people attending programmes at The Spot frequently commented that they really felt welcome there, that the building was not intimidating. The architecture, therefore, successfully reflected the spirit, values, and culture of the organisation.

Challenging briefs are often the most exciting. As a designer, you work and work to unlock the potential that challenges always contain. Sometimes inspiration comes in a sudden “aha” flash. Sometimes it is hard-earned and seemingly impossible to discover – 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration, to co-opt from Edison. One such challenging brief involved working with an arts community in Arnhem Land, Northern Territory. Working with the community was a joy and, notwithstanding the occasional language barrier, a highly rewarding process on an emotional level. The challenges in this case were to do with the stark realities of remote locations and the opaque and inconsistent administration of government programmes.

The last thing I wanted to be for my Arnhem Land clients was a fly-in fly-out, top-down, middle-aged white guy “consulting” from on high. I couldn’t solve the middle-aged white guy part, but everything else I was determined to avoid. My first visit to the community was in the tropical wet season when the only road into the area is cut for months by flooding at Cahill’s Crossing on the East Alligator River, so I was flown in on the daily supply run out of Jabiru. Although the billable work to be done would only require a day of meetings and investigation, I had arranged to stay for a week (billing only for a day) so that I could gain a better sense of the community and their arts practice. Wow, what a week! It took most of that week for me to learn how to slow down to “Territory time” and create the headspace with which to take it all in. My impression of life in remote communities up to that point was based on television news reports that painted a very negative and depressing picture. Lived experience, of course, opened my eyes and mind to the realities. There is so much more to it than the news reports can ever convey. For those who have never spent time in such communities, it is difficult to comprehend. You simply have to experience it to begin to understand it.

My frustrations with the Arnhem Land project stemmed entirely from difficulties in navigating the shifting sands of government programmes and policies. The community has very limited autonomy and is constantly required to respond to changes in government policy and personnel to the point where it sometimes seems easier to give up, or at the least give up hope. I was shocked and disgusted by a system that claimed to help, but which in fact seemed hell-bent on doing nothing meaningful other than producing glossy reports to blow sunshine on programme delivery and budget acquittals.

The Arnhem Land brief was to help the community achieve a new screen-printing workshop and enhanced tourist visitor experience. One of the most moving and memorable moments in my career occurred when I saw faces lighting up with delight after hearing my initial design presentation translated into their language. A sketch of a building didn’t mean much. What caused the smiles was the inclusive process of making the building that I was proposing. It was to be a very hands-on, community-led construction process, including opportunities for numerous art and cultural elements to be embedded in the building fabric. This was to be their building, not mine. That is the way it should always be as far as I am concerned.

An unfortunate series of events, including the forced removal of the manager who introduced JCA to the community, ended the project for me. What was reported in the news differs somewhat from my understanding of what actually happened, but the outcome was that there is still no new building and the community is set back yet again, hopes dashed.

As disappointing as the Arnhem Land outcome is, I will never forget the positive experiences, insights, and inspiration that working in and with that community has blessed me with.

A significant contrast to the experience and realities of a remote tropical community of a few hundred people has been my two trips to China. The first, in 2005, to present a paper on the Noosa North Shore project to an eco-tourism conference. The second, in 2017, as part of a business group exploring the potential of building pre-fabrication for import into Australia. Both trips were by invitation. In the 12 years between those visits, a 40-line network of 400 km/h high-speed trains covering a substantial part of the country had been built. In just 12 years! This one project demonstrates what a powerhouse China has become. There were many other examples of astonishing changes to contemplate too.

China is simply mind-boggling. Their capacity to manufacture world-class products in significant quantities and at low cost is incredible, but I find the disparity in scale between China and Australia to be unsettling. My visits left me with the sense of an unstoppable force with huge ambition.

The pace of change globally has accelerated in the twenty-first century to the point where it has become increasingly like change for change’s sake. Artificial Intelligence is just the latest disruptor to capture our imagination. AI and regional conflicts are occupying many thoughts at the moment. Whilst significant and potentially life-changing, the reality is that these distractions will mean nothing once climate tipping points are crossed and human intervention options cease to exist. Having spent my professional career striving to make a positive contribution to a sustainable urban environment, it is a massive disappointment to me that nothing meaningful has been achieved to avert a climate catastrophe. Individually, a great many people strive to do the right thing. We may even have the means, but collectively we evidently lack the will.

Architecture alone cannot save the world, but it can play a vital part in creating a positive future. For those who continue to practice and those starting out, I implore you to use all of your creative and technical skills to improve the lives of the people who interact with your work, particularly by nurturing a vision for a positive future with a stable and healthy ecosystem.

The mindset has to shift from “sustainability” to regeneration. It is no longer sufficient to do more with less; we must repair, restore, and regenerate. Imagine designing an infinitely renewable, self-replicating habitat operating entirely on solar energy, sequestering carbon from the atmosphere while releasing oxygen and enhancing biodiversity. A pipe dream? No, it is just a tree! That is the design performance benchmark our profession must aspire to.

PS; I will continue to contribute in a voluntary capacity to the Australian Tiny House Association to support their advocacy for the recognition of moveable tiny houses as a legitimate housing typology in Australia. There will also be some travel and other creative pursuits to keep me busy.

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