Jamie is a co-founder and director of Foomann Architects and a director of ArchiTeam Cooperative. Foomann is devoted to realising beautifully simple, sensitive spaces that are underpinned by utility, context and sustainability. Jamie has expertise across a diverse range of commercial, hospitality and residential projects. ArchiTeam, with over 800 members nationally, has a mission to empower and support small practice architects to help them thrive. Jamie is committed to collaboration and to sharing ideas with students, clients, colleagues and the architecture community.

In Melbourne, over the past two decades, countless single-dwelling, retail and hospitality projects have been widely published, awarded and praised internationally. These celebrated projects have been predominately designed by small-practice architects. However, a number of large, architect-led developments in Sydney suggest that we could benefit from broadening the scale and positive impact of our local experts.

In Sydney, since 2000, legislative guidelines require that the design of projects above a certain scale or cost have to ‘demonstrate design excellence’ to attain development approval. Projects that are granted approval through this process can be eligible for up to 10% extra height and/or floor area. To qualify, relevant projects must involve a competitive design process and every joint venture proposal must involve a small scale or emerging architecture practice. The resulting built works have been, well, excellent.

As a measure of excellence, awards programs are sometimes imperfect and often involve a challenging process – I should know, I run the awards program at ArchiTeam. But the numbers from Sydney are compelling; between 2000 and 2017, 50% of proposals that were granted planning approval through Sydney’s design excellence policy have won national awards from the Australian Institute of Architects [1].

An intended outcome from Sydney’s design excellence policy is increased diversity of the city’s built form. The cornerstone of this strategy is the involvement of the emerging architectural practices in the joint venture competition entries. As a result of this competition pre-requisite, between 2000 and 2017; an impressive 88 different firms participated in competitions, with 52 emerging firms winning in their own right or in partnership [1]. This scenario is markedly different to that in Melbourne where a limited number of well-known practices are responsible for so many major projects.

The success of these joint ventures in Sydney has helped create an appreciation of, and demand for collaborative projects. In July 2020, at the Australian Institute of Architects NSW Awards; seven of the fourteen top categories were awarded to architect collaborations.

In Melbourne, similar plans are afoot. Participate Melbourne has published for comment its 'Design Excellence Program 2019–2030' and, in the short term, the City of Melbourne has drafted planning amendments (Amendment C308: Urban design in the central city and Southbank) with a range of minimum standards to improve the public interface and design quality of new developments.

While we wait for ‘design excellence’ to be legislated in Victoria, private developers can take the lead to ensure that significantly better, more diverse projects are built in Melbourne. Firstly, when a project is sufficiently large, impactful or culturally significant to justify the resources, private developers should take Sydney’s lead and run equally rigorous design competitions that encourage architect collaborations. When projects are not appropriate candidates for a design competition, developers should seek out potential architect joint ventures. Ask that a preferred architect create a team between an emerging or small practice and an experienced larger practice; both with outstanding design pedigree. Small practices provide fresh ideas while working with a large practice mitigates the perceived risks in relation to successful project delivery.

The resourcefulness and charisma that the work of small practice architects display is what consistently captures the imagination of home owners. This should be considered as part of a general strategy to promote development properties above the status of commodities. Apartments are often described by agents and developers as 1 or 2 bedroom ‘products’. This pejorative term is part of a culture that puts a cap on the value of smaller homes. A design excellence approach promoting architect collaboration in the residential sphere would result in developments that transcend the norm whilst providing genuine substance to the marketing campaign.

All participants in the building industry have an opportunity and responsibility to positively contribute to the built fabric of our city, the lives of its occupants and the public realm. It’s time that our local talent is given the opportunity to prove that, just like in Sydney, we can demonstrate award-worthy design excellence through effective collaboration.

Jamie Sormann Foomann Architects ArchiTeam Director

References:

[1] Reshaping Sydney by design – few know about the mandatory competitions, but we all see the results.

Thank you to Jennifer McMaster, Trias, and Andrew Burns, Andrew Burns Architecture, for the inside knowledge of Sydney processes. Both are small practice architects contributing excellent work on big Sydney projects.

Participate Melbourne Design Excellence Program 2019-2030

Sydney Local Environmental Plan 2012

City of Sydney Competitive Design Policy 2013

Draft NSW Design Excellence Competition Guidelines 2018

The Conversation - Reshaping Sydney by design – few know about the mandatory competitions, but we all see the results

Current notable collaborations in Sydney between small and large practices:

• Green Square Site 15 - SJB, Andrew Burns + CHROFI

• Circular Quay development - MAKE Architecture, Silvester Fuller and SJB