On The Boards Series Talk | West Coast Modern league | Design Victoria 2025

I was honored to be asked to speak about our work and design process at West Coast Modern League's On the Board Series. We selected three projects in three different phase of development to demonstrate three core aspects of our design work:

Open Heart Mind Centre, North of Miracle Beach - Schematic Design

I told a story from my apprenticeship with Terry Brown who impressed in me that idea must connecting with clients and be rethought until they connect with them. He asked of himself "When the building is built and the novelty wears off in time, do those that inhabit the place feel that it is theirs when they sit in the space?"

Passage House, Salt Spring Island - Starting Construction

In basic drawing class one is taught to draw what you actually see, not what you know. You draw the person standing in front of you not "a person" in the abstract. The experience of sitting and drawing, in situ, many hundreds of times when traveling the world in my youth became integral to how I design buildings. Sitting out on the site and drawing leads until I begin to see beyond "the site" or "nature" in the abstract and really see the site in actually in front of me. To simplify, a conceptual design evolves from what is seen and experienced on the site not from abstract, known, ideas imposed from the outside.

Drawing in real time in front of clients and those you work with is powerful in modern, digital, architectural practice.

Outdoor Gathering Place, Salt Spring Island - Completing Construction

Experience in apprenticeship working design/build and building my own house led to the use of simple modeling technology to visualize construction that communicates how a building goes together that looks to he strengths of the builder and does not over micro-manage.

Julian Carnrite and I during Q+A