1.3 How TCL Work An Introduction to the way we work
Our idyllic notion of the three Directors collaborating on all of our significant projects has not always been possible. While we have tried for the three of us to work together, the fact that we are geographically in Adelaide and Melbourne, has meant that there have only been a certain number of projects that we have come together on. As would be expected, Kevin and myself in Adelaide collaborated on projects on a daily basis, and Perry typically worked with staff in the Melbourne studio on most of the projects generated there. The three of us have come together to collaborate on projects when we recognised that our combined skills would be suited to that project scale, importance or complexity. These combined skills and backgrounds in architecture, urban design and artistic practice have also been used as part of our ‘pitch’ when bidding for projects. These projects have been mostly for design competitions and major public projects and all have been significant projects in terms of their public standing. We believe our different approaches have resulted in a richer, more dense, design solution. Equally the design collaboration, the process of negotiating solutions, the challenge of ‘who holds the pen’, is, for each of us a rewarding process. On these collaborations the spiritual leader was Kevin, he would, with a quiet and modest manner, be the conduit to Perry and I on the nuances of the site context and opportunities, project brief, community and stakeholder concerns, artistic collaborations and client relationships. He would guide a steady ship ensuring design discussions are fostered within the realpolitik of the project. Perry would typically attempt to grasp the bigger story of the project, understand its urban context and attempt to grasp a conceptual framework to guide the many and varied design discussions and decisions. To get to the nub of the project as fast as possible would be his ideal collaboration. By contrast I would like to keep opportunities open and conversations flowing. At larger scales I would often defer to Kevin and Perry, participating in the design process but not necessarily holding the pen. My interest in art, planting, detail and materiality meant that I became more active and vocal at the middle to small scale of the project. These differences, and the way each of us work and collaborate, were further articulated at our first PRS in June 2010. Here we each talked about another Director and attempted to summarise, what we believed, were their core qualities as designers. An edited excerpt of that discussion follows.
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