Lego, The Lorax and a Lime Green Porsche
Growing up in a terrace house in inner-city Melbourne in the 1970s, my childhood revolved around building lego, styling my dolls house, sleepovers and way too much after school television. Weekends were spent camping or visiting my grandparents’ farm, where days of unsupervised outdoor play, building cubby houses and collecting tadpoles, required creativity, resourcefulness and a sense of adventure.
Overseas travel with history-obsessed parents and periods living and attending school in Italy introduced me to cathedrals and art museums, piazzas and pensiones — challenging any assumption that there was one right way to live.
At school I was terrible at sport but found my happy place in the art room. I loved drawing and making. In year 7 I won a drawing competition for an anti-pollution campaign with a drawing of the city submerged in smog. I was highly influenced by The Lorax by Dr Seuss and I'd say that one book set me on my path towards environmentalism.
I took art, physics, applied maths and European history in secondary school. After two weeks of work experience in an architect's office — including a lift home in the architect's lime green Porsche (it was the 80s) — architecture was a natural choice. I started my degree at Melbourne University and transferred to RMIT.
In my first year of architecture, I saw a flyer for a yoga class and thought "yoga – I wonder what that is." I went along to the Rathdowne Street Yoga Room and did my first class in the Iyengar tradition, focusing on breathwork and the asanas. I have been practicing ever since. A regular yoga and mindfulness practice has given me the quality of sustained attention that complex, long-term projects demand.
In 1993, I initiated a rare study exchange to India to study at CEPT under V.B. Doshi — one of the great architects of the 20th century and a Pritzker Prize laureate. I went on to intern at Daniel Libeskind's Berlin studio, where construction on the Jewish Museum had just commenced. While project managers oversaw the build, a handful of us worked on late stage documentation — an intimate involvement in one of the most significant works of architecture of its era.
After graduating, I worked for renowned Melbourne practices across arts, hospitality, education, heritage and multi-residential architecture, while raising my two children. In 2006 I won the Premier's Design Award sustainability prize for the internationally recognised LUMI rainwater tank — a design that changed how Australians think about urban water collection.
I have also taught Professional Practice, Design and Construction at the University of Melbourne, and Sustainable Design at Swinburne University.
In 2015, I relocated from Melbourne to Castlemaine and established Logan Architecture Studio. My studio occupies a historic church I converted myself — next to which I built two apartments, one of which I call home.