Dr Kirsty Volz is an architect and academic. She is a co-director of Toussaint and Volz and senior lecturer in architecture at the Queensland University of Technology.
In discussion with local architects and academics Kirsty Volz and John Doyle, American architectural practitioners Elizabeth Bowie Christoforetti and Jacob Reidel share insights from studio visits to six Australian practices, revealing a profession navigating structural change across procurement models, labour markets and expanding digitalisation.
In outer Brisbane, three suburban lots have been transformed into 14 new social dwellings, offering a demonstration of what housing can achieve when it is considered as infrastructure, where its outcomes are measured against health and wellbeing, innovation in construction and long-term sustainability, rather than cost alone.
Inspired by the subtleties of Japanese design and the reparative properties of light and landscape, Brisbane architect John Ellway designs quiet houses that shun spectacle in favour of calm settings that enrich daily life.
A delightfully versatile multigenerational holiday home on Minjerribah employs lightweight pavilions to comfortably accommodate few or many.
A shapeshifting dwelling built behind a Sunshine Coast shop is a delightful setting that supports adaptable, small-footprint living.
ArchitectureAu Asks the Brisbane academic and architect, “When it comes to apartment towers in our suburbs, how high is too high?”
Golden Avenue transforms Brisbane’s “downtown” into a cinematic, subtropical homage to Parisian courtyards, melding heritage architecture, lush interiors and urban energy.
A former tennis court adjacent to the owners’ old family home now accommodates a calm and sophisticated new residence for right-size living.
In contrast to densely packed apartments that extend to the edge of the floor plate, the “baggy” design of this residential high-rise creates space for climate responsiveness and urban connectivity – and leaves a legacy that will shape local design governance and policy.
In responding to the Brisbane riverfront climate, Bates Smart’s apartment building offers “a synthesis of both hard and soft sciences.”
