Design Principles Pod

The Everything House: Materiality in Architecture and Pushing Boundaries

• Sam Brown, Ben Sutherland and Gerard Dombroski • Season 1 • Episode 17

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What happens when you build an entire house from just one material? We explore the revolutionary "everything house" concept, inspired by architectural visionaries like Robert Bruno, Tadao Ando, and Tom Kundig. This episode takes you on an imaginative journey through the possibilities and challenges of constructing homes from singular materials like wood and concrete. We question the marriage of aesthetics and functionality in architecture and reflect on the profound impact such designs have on our daily lives.

Be inspired by the unexpected as we humorously consider a house made entirely of plasterboard and marvel at Shigeru Ban's ingenious use of cardboard. Discover the magic that unfolds when architects push a design concept to its fullest, as seen in the ice hotel where every element is sculpted from ice. We delve into the importance of bold colour choices and materiality, highlighting the creative courage required to challenge conventional design norms and realise truly unique architectural masterpieces.

The debate surrounding architectural ornamentation resurfaces as we explore the tension between modernist minimalism and ornate classical styles. Are we missing something by shunning decorative elements in contemporary design? As we reflect on projects that successfully blend ornamentation with modern aesthetics, we invite listeners to reconsider the role of decorative features in enhancing a building's unity and rhythm. Join us in celebrating the artistry and innovation that can emerge when architects dare to push beyond traditional boundaries.

Chapters:

  • 0:13 - Exploring the Everything House Concept
  • 14:35 - The Impact of Architectural Design
  • 18:18 - The Art of Process-Based Design
  • 33:18 - Pushing Architectural Boundaries
  • 46:19 - The Debate on Decorative Elements

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Gerard Dombroski:

it's good listening into radio dombrowski uh, cool, all right so what's on the agenda today?

Ben Sutherland:

Should we crack into it? What?

Sam Brown:

have you got for us?

Gerard Dombroski:

What yarns Are we spinning?

Sam Brown:

Well, before we get into the nitty-gritty, a bit of a hiatus for the DPP. A few life things have been going on Ben's shifted, shifted islands no islands. Up island To the big schmoke. To the big schmoke, gerard's been building cool shit. I don't know if it's supposed to be on the D-low or not, and I've had another kid, so we've been a bit preoccupied. But we're back better than ever and with a bit of a new take. We enjoyed our interview series but trying to delve deeper into some design concepts coming up, and the first one of the days, something that I've been thinking about, it's kind of been on my mind for a while and it's a concept that I call the everything house, sort of focusing on materiality, watch out and it's a design idea where everything in the house is made from one material.

Ben Sutherland:

So this let's take concrete spark.

Sam Brown:

What sparked that on for you, sam I think it's a use, like us using sips a lot, and it's an incredible like it's a very wooden interior when it's exposed, yeah, but it's like it's, it's a, it's a veneer ultimately right like the actual, like the inside of the wall is not all wood and ice cream sandwich you know this the slab.

Sam Brown:

If it's on a slab, you know obviously that's not wood. But so I was like what happens if everything is wood? You know you're your framing, your lining, your insulation, your furniture, your Everything, your plumbing, plumbing yeah, why?

Ben Sutherland:

not you may as well exclude plumbing and electrical. I don't know how the electrical I mean electrical, probably not.

Sam Brown:

I think there's some points you're going to have to draw the line. You're not getting a good current.

Gerard Dombroski:

Yeah, I don't know man.

Sam Brown:

I'm all for an extreme concept and forego the realities but I, yeah, I I mean, well, that's the thing, right, gerard? Like you don't have to, it doesn't necessarily even have to be livable. I mean, I I've jotted down a couple of examples for you guys to check out. I don't know if you had a look at them at all.

Sam Brown:

Probably the most yeah, I was going to say the most radical of them is the Robert Bruno house. I don't know if anyone's seen that. I'll put a link to it in the show notes, but that is a proof of concept.

Ben Sutherland:

One thing that blew my mind, actually when I was doing some research on this, is the amount of quite well renowned architects who have actually attempted this I guess, probably like when you are working with material like concrete, then it's just kind of like makes sense to make it, oh you know, fully, fully concrete concrete roof, concrete structure and yeah like today.

Ben Sutherland:

I was a great example, so concrete is definitely the obvious choice of material. Also probably a lot easier to achieve in some of those foreign countries. As opposed to new zealand, I don't know how it would work trying to like meet the New Zealand building code.

Sam Brown:

Well, I think that's the thing right, like this idea is not something that's necessarily going to be even functional, but I think it's just like it's a folly concept. A pavilion, yeah, really exciting to explore, and that's that Westerpunt by Studio Marta, really exciting to explore, and that's that westerpunt by studio mata. You know, that's that sort of helix, um concrete, uh, what uh like viewing platform is what it kind of is. You know, that is that's the sort of idea that I'm getting to the entire thing.

Gerard Dombroski:

Yeah, it is a epic object.

Sam Brown:

Yes, but that's quite cool because you know it's concrete. But it's so. It's so dynamic and so fluid and it sort of really belies that you know the, the nature or the you know the physical nature of concrete, because it looks like water the gnarliness of that is probably building it in the waves.

Gerard Dombroski:

Like it's, it's lapped by the waves yeah which that must have some horrendous foundations but you're right.

Sam Brown:

Going back to the, you know, like today or ando concepts and stuff, you know there's definitely architects there that champion a material you know, and kundig's one who I, you know.

Sam Brown:

That comes springs to mind maybe not necessarily, like you know, giving himself over to one material in its entirety, but, like his, the honesty of the materials that he uses, like everything is sort of warts and all it's raw. It's you raw, it's sort of in its natural state, which I quite like as well. I feel like there's so much gloss and ornamentation, almost like the disguising of the reality of materials in the stuff that we do, which I find kind of disappointing.

Gerard Dombroski:

Yeah Well, I think he's good at following his aesthetic concept. It's clearly industrial and pushes it all the way. I think, like, for example, this Robert Bruno house big steel sort of animalistic creature thing from the outside is epic but on the inside they kind of fall down. Like the looks like laminate flooring in this super industrial steel building. You're so close.

Sam Brown:

Yeah, I kind of feel like You're not quite taking the concept far enough. Well, I almost think it's kind of posters death. You know, the people that have bought it have tried to turn it into something a bit real and I think you can stay there now.

Ben Sutherland:

Yeah, it's an Airbnb, I think, by the looks of it.

Sam Brown:

Yeah, but it's kind of sad in a way because it's going against what I think his original concept was, which was for it to be completely steel. Yeah, and I really like the story in a way, the sustainable nature of it and the fact that all the steel he used was salvaged and then he, over decades, developed it iteratively. But he'd like chop bits out and then reuse them somewhere else and like be like I want to cut a window here and then like weld it onto somewhere else and they'd be like oh, I don't like that and you know, I kind of like that ability to meld and sort of like manipulate the material because it is all the same.

Sam Brown:

You know you couldn't really do that if there was, you know there was a timber nature there.

Ben Sutherland:

If I was to I would definitely go with timber as a material if I was to attempt this, I think just because it comes in so many like such a variety of different forms, so you can already have some sort of timber cladding, timber flooring, timber structure. Is it the potato?

Gerard Dombroski:

of building materials the potato of building materials.

Sam Brown:

That's brilliant. Probably is. That's perfect. You can what fries mash.

Ben Sutherland:

Yeah, exactly Chips, and it's so good, boiled, baked and sustainable, I guess Goes in the ground Architecture school does that like chair cardboard thing.

Gerard Dombroski:

They should do potatoes, potato architecture.

Sam Brown:

Yeah, timber's cool and I don't know if you guys ever looked at and I think it's something that's actually probably been almost proven, particularly in the past. You know, have you looked at those Norwegians? Is it stave or starve churches?

Gerard Dombroski:

They're the ones that are all black generally.

Sam Brown:

Yeah, but they are like timber-fram timber framed like timber, everything the timber shingle. I have a feeling they use like sawdust for insulation or something crazy like that as well. The concept of that is pretty cool.

Ben Sutherland:

Absolute fire death trap. They look like witch houses.

Sam Brown:

Yeah, they do look like witch houses, but you know, I little witch hats.

Gerard Dombroski:

Is the black stained or is it charred Because? You know, charring is a natural fireproofing.

Sam Brown:

I think they're pretty old. It's probably just like patina. It might even be like you know lichens.

Gerard Dombroski:

They just haven't washed it.

Sam Brown:

Yeah, that's what my outdoor furniture looks like.

Gerard Dombroski:

There's a good history of all timber buildings around the world, like the old japanese temples and stuff yeah, where they use like timber nails and yeah, yeah just that sort of stuff.

Sam Brown:

I think that's, that's the.

Ben Sutherland:

That's sort of the level of detail that I'd love to take this concept yeah, those all of the joints are kind of like slotted perfectly into position and it's so satisfying to watch.

Gerard Dombroski:

It's kind of funny how we have all these initiatives to make buildings reusable and design them so they can come apart, and people have already mastered that, mastered it.

Ben Sutherland:

Yeah, it just takes a little bit longer yeah, it's the labour aspect, really, isn't it?

Gerard Dombroski:

and the craftsmanship.

Sam Brown:

There's no way you're getting a chippy in New Zealand to build in a Japanese manner.

Ben Sutherland:

I've spent a large period of my life watching Japanese YouTube clips on timber construction. Nothing better than their chisels and their tools are just all so cool the handsaw and everything it's like oh my god do you reckon you could build like that?

Ben Sutherland:

a lot of it is like patience, and I guess you would probably want to go and learn from one of those masters for a period of time, because there's a lot to it, like the way that they do their set outs and everything is just. It's just phenomenal really. It's just completely different and it's all hand-drawn and hand-calculated and measured and cut. It's craftsmanship really, isn't it? Yeah, it's craftsmanship. It's building a bit of joinery. It's far more like joinery than it is construction. So you'd probably want a bit of training. You'd attempt it and you'd probably pull off something half. Okay, I find it interesting that a bit of training, you'd attempt it and you'd probably pull off something.

Gerard Dombroski:

I find it interesting that a lot of the newer ones they still have the same structure, um, but they're all kind of hidden. Ultimately, by the end of the project you don't see any of them. Yeah, whereas it's kind of interesting to put so much time in care.

Sam Brown:

They're still building, like actually you don't see.

Gerard Dombroski:

Yeah, what's it?

Sam Brown:

are they still building like that? Yeah, yeah, definitely shit cool.

Ben Sutherland:

Yeah, the ones that I like go on the youtube rabbit holes. It's like literally, like they cut the logs down, they select some trees. That's where they start. They start by like cutting down the trees and milling the timber and storing it in the yard for a year, and it's pretty insane.

Sam Brown:

I mean that's sustainable right. That's the true description of vernacular.

Gerard Dombroski:

Yeah, the use of the immediate their spec home essentially is still like the big 150 by 150 microframe timber posts everywhere, everywhere, all slotting, but it's just like cnc'd yeah, it's all done on a grid, but it's still still put together the same way yeah which is just epic that they hold on to that rather than doing what the rest of us are doing.

Sam Brown:

rather than doing what the rest of us are doing, try and marry up as many foreign materials as humanly possible. I feel like that's the way we build.

Ben Sutherland:

Yeah, it is, and I guess the whole point of it is like, well, the whole point of an every hat thing house would be to expose like the raw structure and you know, like it tells the story about how it was built and how long it's been there and the man hours uh it took to kind of assemble where the material. You can even like kind of understand a lot more about where the materials come from and and what it is. And I think so, if you, if you're gonna, you know, I guess that's what's amazing about those houses is it really does kind of uh, it's all pretty obvious when you walk in those spaces that you understand exactly how it was built and designed and everything. That's a.

Sam Brown:

I think it's the honesty right, it's, it's the honesty of the building, I feel like. So much what's interesting. I saw a comment about sort of something about materiality and and is it something that we as architects or designers really consider? And I think that that it is. I mean, it's a you know, it's a pretty common buzz term that we use all the time, and I think we really do think about materiality when we're designing but is it something that users appreciate and interact on a same, on a similar level?

Sam Brown:

I don't think so. You know, I don't think that they go and look at that westerpunt, you know, look out and go, holy shit, this whole thing's made out of concrete. It's like cantilevering on this, like helix form. How did they form this out of concrete? Like they're not really looking at it that way. But back to your point being a, you know, if something's really pushed, you know, like if they are experiencing and everything else, then they have no, but no choice but to appreciate and interact with it, and I think that's quite a nice way of getting users and the consumers of buildings to kind of appreciate materiality a bit more.

Ben Sutherland:

Yeah, so exposing the materials as opposed to covering them up?

Gerard Dombroski:

Yeah, architecture is so often peripheral, like by design is something that's in the back of your mind. It has to be pretty gnarly to come front of mind.

Sam Brown:

Yeah, it has to punch you in the face a little bit for you to take note as like not a common, you know, not a casual sort of appreciator. I mean, I'd say that a lot of listeners and us all as architects, you know, I distinctly remember when we were at architecture school as well. You know you walk around with your head in the sky because you're just looking up at buildings all the time. Most people don't do that, but you know if something really is quite sensational or spectacular or interesting, then it, you know it draws in the general public. You know you're not going to have somebody come into a spec house in New Zealand and go oh wow, look at this beautiful use of a plasterboard.

Gerard Dombroski:

That's crazy. I've never seen it before. Yeah, that beautiful jib board. What a unique use of jib board.

Ben Sutherland:

Literally no one has ever seen that. That's so funny.

Sam Brown:

Could you do a plasterboard house?

Gerard Dombroski:

Yeah, I guess, if you laminated enough plasterboard together, it would become.

Ben Sutherland:

It would just melt in the rain, I mean hey, if you can do a cardboard cathedral, you can do a plasterboard house, surely?

Sam Brown:

Yeah, actually that's a really good proof. That's a really good kind of everything. Material is you know Shigeru Ban's use of cardboard?

Gerard Dombroski:

Yeah, that's a guy who knows how to run a concept.

Sam Brown:

Yeah, yeah.

Gerard Dombroski:

Often running a concept. He just scales up his models and you have to like pull everything back to make sure you follow that. The issue is when you start cutting corners and letting other materials come in. Yeah, issue is when you start cutting corners and letting other materials come in. Yeah, so, like the, the ice hotel is probably a really blatant example of like a successful single material project yep, because in that, all the beds, all the furniture, everything's carved out of ice, correct?

Gerard Dombroski:

yeah, yeah, cold slate but people, people go from lots of places over the world to stay in one of those, don't they?

Ben Sutherland:

How long do they last? I?

Gerard Dombroski:

don't know A couple of months, the heart of winter.

Ben Sutherland:

What about a tree? I guess there's a lot of tree hut architecture on Airbnb and that sort of thing.

Gerard Dombroski:

Yeah, people respond well to novelties. I think, well, maybe we, just as humans, need novelty to more novelty, architecture cut through.

Sam Brown:

I think it's because everything else is so benign, right, yeah?

Gerard Dombroski:

and so few people are willing to follow a concept to the degree that is required to make something really impactful what we should be doing is.

Ben Sutherland:

One way to design like this would be to probably do what shakira barn does and make a physical model of your or whatever it is cathedral or house or whatever and literally just scale it up. Yeah, I'm using the same material and everything yeah, shit.

Sam Brown:

Yeah, I mean, I used. I used heaps of plaster when I was at uni for modeling.

Ben Sutherland:

I don't there you go, but that's your job house yeah, well, that, exactly that's the past.

Sam Brown:

I've already done it nice.

Gerard Dombroski:

yeah, exactly. Well, it's a good way to like use the inherent qualities of a material. Like, if you're a ceramic house, like I don't know, you're probably going to need some archways and shit going on, yeah, yeah.

Sam Brown:

Understanding the limitations of your medium. You know that's quite interesting. Like how does I was just going to say, gerard like for you, particularly with all your steel work, like you'd have you'd have a far better relationship or understanding of that than we probably do like, how does that sort of transform into your, into your art and your sculpture making and stuff?

Gerard Dombroski:

well, a lot of my stuff's designed around the process of making it, so I don't hydroform things. You set your parameters and then you hydroform and you kind of get what you're given Right. To me. It's the beauty of the process.

Ben Sutherland:

Are you ever going to attempt a hydroformed house? That would be pretty epic.

Gerard Dombroski:

Yeah, yeah, I've been trying to weigh it up whether I make a little hydroformed uh office like a little, just a little studio, like a backyard office. If anybody out there wants a hydroformed office, let me go I do obviously but I just want to hydroform, like I was thinking to start off small, but it's still a fuckload of water. I like the size of the bed in my unit or something like 2.4 by 1.8. But just a comically house-like shape, you know the gable and a door and a window.

Sam Brown:

Traditional, like kid's drawing.

Gerard Dombroski:

Yeah, kid's drawing. But then you fill it up with water and figure it out.

Ben Sutherland:

Or and just hear me out you literally go and buy like a bouncy castle and you just pull it apart so you can use that as your template, and then just wow, wow that all together and blow that up a stainless steel bouncy castle would be pretty epic does it only work with stainless?

Gerard Dombroski:

nah, nah. I've just been starting to use stainless a lot. It's kind of nice to work with.

Ben Sutherland:

Can you weld stainless as good? Yeah, I mean you personally. Nah, just kidding.

Gerard Dombroski:

Can you weld stainless?

Ben Sutherland:

I've welded twice before.

Gerard Dombroski:

I like working with stainless. The colour feedback is quite nice, Like you can tell if your welds are going good on how colourful your weld is. Yeah, but yeah, I think, like you said before, like people, architects generally have an idea of materiality, but you maybe. Sometimes we apply materials to a face, versus like using the inherent qualities of material to make the wall and the I don't know what's left. Is the outcome like like a log cabin perhaps? Is like a true example?

Sam Brown:

yeah, it's so true, I'd say that. I'd say that 99% of what we do and you know to your point is essentially like facadeism.

Gerard Dombroski:

Yeah, we're decorating cakes to a large degree, totally.

Sam Brown:

Yeah.

Gerard Dombroski:

I don't know, I'm just quite seduced by process-based outcomes. That sucks, so the more I can. You can kind of trick yourself into unknown outcomes that way as well but how?

Ben Sutherland:

so what's the design process other than like hydroforming? I kind of get, but what are some other ways you can achieve that, that design, that unknown design process?

Sam Brown:

melting stuff, yeah like yeah, yeah like melting plastics or even melting metals. Let it cool around a form I don't know.

Ben Sutherland:

But you're not going to do that on a house size scale.

Sam Brown:

Well, you know maybe Could you, yeah, but could you? But if not, then why not on an elemental scale? You know, like you could do that for furniture. To begin with, you know, start small and then you can start to move it up to okay, can we do like building elements as part of it? Or, you know, does it become part of, like, generation of form? You know what I mean. Like I think that's quite an interesting way of looking at it. You know, it's like I guess it's a it's quite an interesting way of looking at it. You know, it's like I guess it's a matter of probably changing the state of material, right, you know, because the majority of stuff that we deal with is solid and in its solid state it's rather limiting, but it's a matter of trying to take it to a, like a more liquid, or I don't know. Even can you turn something into a gas that then generates form? I don't know.

Gerard Dombroski:

You know, like.

Sam Brown:

I think it's changing the actual, like natural state of it to generate something new, but it's still like it's the process, but it's still super honest, if you know what I mean.

Gerard Dombroski:

Yeah, there's like those dome projects where they inflate like a bubble, like a canvas, yeah, and then pour concrete over it with rebar.

Sam Brown:

There you go, that's gas. Inspired.

Ben Sutherland:

There's. Who? Is it One of them? Maybe? Oh, I can't remember Renzo Piano, I can't remember. But how they basically, like, made that log cabin and then formed the concrete around it, then burnt the timber oh cool, oh um for chapel. Yeah, I actually visited in germany once.

Gerard Dombroski:

It's pretty yeah like stuff like that is just so processed like the. Yeah, that's like what interests me, a shite load.

Ben Sutherland:

Yeah.

Sam Brown:

That Zumthal one's pretty cool because it's sort of like it's the everything house times two. It's been completely built out of timber, yeah, and then completely built out of concrete, but it's the same building, but it's two very different. It would have been quite interesting to have had the timber form sort of there for let's say, a decade and the experience that people kind of have in using that for that period of time. And then all of a sudden he's like, oh, I'm going to encase it in concrete, burn it, and then it's the same building, but it's a completely different experience. It's a completely different internal environment.

Gerard Dombroski:

That's quite a cool concept there's something interesting there about like a really long time frame. So, like I don't know, you're pouring in a meter of concrete a year or something into like a something that fills up well, I'm building a house out of house. House is more of a, the construction of it's, more of like a drawn-out spectacle yeah, they're probably even using like sculpture or not, is it topiary?

Sam Brown:

you know, like growing trees, you know you can grow trees to sort of like be in and around things yeah, controlling the growth of a tree to create form, or you know something like that.

Gerard Dombroski:

It's quite quite cool there's a pleached cathedral somewhere in the world. I've seen pictures of.

Sam Brown:

What's it called Jura pleaching? Is that the method?

Gerard Dombroski:

Yeah, you just train them to grow. In certain ways you can pleach chairs and stuff if you just grow a tree and bend it.

Sam Brown:

I want to find this now.

Gerard Dombroski:

There's another epic process, one I remember on Arc Daily back in the day. They had another little single room but it was like straw bales stacked on top of each other. Then they encased it in concrete and then let the cows just eat the straw out. Really nice concrete. And then let the cows just eat the straw out really nice. Yeah, that's quite like a beautiful messy form, I think, with like a real sharp window face yeah that's quite cool.

Ben Sutherland:

And then we've got old uh ishigami's restaurant house ishigami's I was gonna say that before where dig holes, yeah, and fill that full of concrete. I guess the common theme is just using either the material or the negative, or using the actual negative, the inverse, the inverse, yeah.

Gerard Dombroski:

I'm going to start experimenting with steel as concrete formwork. Oh yeah, Just got a chair, sort of like a stool commission at the moment. So just like, maybe just playing with the thickness of your steel to see how much natural I guess it's high-swelling but with concrete.

Sam Brown:

Right, and so is the final product going to be concrete, but you're not really controlling how precise it would be. No, is that the idea?

Gerard Dombroski:

I guess it'd be like a box frame and then you'd pick the thickness of the steel as to how, and then the weight of the concrete, how much that would bow out.

Ben Sutherland:

But, wouldn't, you be able to.

Gerard Dombroski:

Long time ago, with a very subtle movement in his moulds.

Ben Sutherland:

Yeah, would you hydroform it first and then fill it full of concrete.

Gerard Dombroski:

What's that?

Ben Sutherland:

You could hydroform it first if you wanted even more bulge.

Sam Brown:

Yeah, in theory yes, but I'm probably more interested in, like the, the story of the process yeah, and and I like your idea of subtlety there as well, gerard I think, like everything we've sort of talked to so far all of the solutions, all of the results of these processes it'll be quite abrupt, but something like that. You kind of know that it's not the natural way that that material is supposed to be, but you're not quite sure why, you know. Yeah, I like that nature of subtlety to it.

Ben Sutherland:

I don't know. I'm on the fence about that one. I'd need to be proven that. I guess the subtlety if done, done poorly, could just look like a mistake.

Sam Brown:

Yeah.

Ben Sutherland:

You potentially need to concept explain Someone's boxing wasn't built properly and blew out a little bit in this corner 100%.

Gerard Dombroski:

I've had a few of those before. They're never mistakes. They're never mistakes.

Sam Brown:

They're never mistakes, they're just design iterations. You know, experimentation.

Gerard Dombroski:

How much shit have people passed off as like intentional, when it's been just a giant mistake?

Sam Brown:

Isn't that what we do as a profession post-rationalization?

Gerard Dombroski:

Yeah, it's like oh shit, I forgot to tell you a door.

Sam Brown:

Oh no it's about enclosure.

Gerard Dombroski:

It's tough oh shit, I forgot to tell you a door.

Ben Sutherland:

Oh, now it's about enclosure.

Gerard Dombroski:

It's tough live decorating cakes. I forgot to give you a window. Oh no, this room's the cave. It's the narrative of the space.

Sam Brown:

This is your gimp den, but it's on the top floor. I'm sure that was in the brief.

Gerard Dombroski:

No, oh, my bad genius they don't go super hard on the single material. But you know the tree hotel and somewhere in scandinavia where they have just a bunch of real elaborate um, I guess hotel structures floating around in the bush, yeah, yeah, there's like a mirror one which is like just a mirror cube on a single tree.

Sam Brown:

Oh yeah, I know the one. That's pretty cool.

Gerard Dombroski:

It's like full mirror outside, full timber inside, and then you sort of see the trunk coming through the space.

Sam Brown:

I'll say one material we haven't discussed which I think has a lot of potential is bamboo as well. For that, everything use.

Ben Sutherland:

I knew you were going to bring up bamboo, the bamboo man.

Sam Brown:

Come on, I thought it had to be.

Ben Sutherland:

It's good. Yeah, it has to be done. I mean like in theory, that's what my thesis was.

Sam Brown:

It's what it started. Yeah, the concept started around that and then sort of it evolved out a little bit. But then I had that I designed that house in nepal which was all bamboos, sands, the concrete footings, and which was pretty. That was that. I guess that was a proof of concept. Like all the windows, doors, the furniture structure, everything was all bamboo, bamboo pins. The only thing that was plumbing material, isn't it?

Sam Brown:

bamboo plumbing? Yeah, the only thing wasn't was electrical. You can't. You can't run a charge through bamboo unless someone else someone knows how to. You'll crack code, maybe run it through your pipe.

Gerard Dombroski:

What was that? You run it through your pipes? Yeah, you could do. Yeah, water conducting.

Ben Sutherland:

Yeah, water conducting.

Sam Brown:

I've cracked it. That's another one. One thing that we haven't talked about is maybe shifting from that idea of maybe material so much, but still in that vein of the everything house.

Ben Sutherland:

Ben, you've got a note here on color well, yeah, the everything, the all, one color house. This reminds me of the. Gerard dombrowski attempted this once, didn't you, gerard? How'd that work out?

Gerard Dombroski:

well, I moved jobs halfway through that project so I wasn't there to drive the train. What color?

Sam Brown:

were you going for gerard?

Gerard Dombroski:

full yellow it was a yellow yellow but everything being yellow, so it's pretty epic.

Ben Sutherland:

The problem that the thing that happened was just finding a urine yellow toilet is was just too.

Sam Brown:

Wait, wait, wait. Did you say urine yellow? Was that the entire concept?

Gerard Dombroski:

Yes, it was.

Ben Sutherland:

It had like yellow tiles, yellow floor tiles, yellow everything.

Sam Brown:

A little bit soft yellow room. Oh yeah, nice. I mean, I think that's a great concept and maybe it's not done to that extreme. But you know, have you seen that project, that Seven Colourful Little Houses project in Christchurch?

Gerard Dombroski:

Is that a recent one?

Sam Brown:

Recently completed one. I mean, that's sort of of that ilk.

Ben Sutherland:

Oh yes.

Sam Brown:

The designs are all exactly the same. I think they may be pivoted about 90 degrees to sight, but the only thing that differentiates them is the colour. But they've been true to the colour selection. So the entire facade or the entire exterior is one colour, and then that's brought through into the interior, I think in the kitchen and in the joinery, and I really like that, because what they've taken is something that could be incredibly benign. You know, it's very much a spec house, yeah, but with just one yeah, kind of like yeah, one design decision that's made it such a successful project, and so, yeah, it looks like it was well executed as well.

Ben Sutherland:

I think it's because it's's quite well designed and they've used quite good products internally, so I think they've pulled it off really well.

Sam Brown:

Yeah, I love it. I think it's really cool. Also, good colour selections. I think you could kind of it could be less successful if you're a bit too garish with your colour choice.

Gerard Dombroski:

M-V-R-DDV. The Dutch office. Yeah, they are surely the kings of colour. Lots of like massive, monotone projects, just massive colour-blocking entire buildings, and I like that because I think we shy, particularly in new zealand.

Sam Brown:

Fuck, just getting back from central otago like there is no blandish color palette yeah, yeah, this color palette in the world, it's all so similar I mean we're so terrified of the use of color here. It's, you know, it's. Yeah, it's shocking, I think. I think I mean we've talked about it several times on the podcast, but I think it's because in general, we're pretty plain and boring.

Ben Sutherland:

Isn't it crazy that all it takes is like a building to be one full colour for it to stand out. How is that a thing?

Sam Brown:

That's crazy, but it's also commitment to the bit, and I think this is the same with the everything house and in terms of materiality as well. You, you can't half-ass a concept like this. You know like you can't go, I'm gonna do an everything else out of timber, but there's gonna be, like you know, elements of other materials. It's just not gonna work. Like, if you want this to be truly successful and it's exactly the same with color is commit wholeheartedly. You know like, if you're like I want a splash of color, then all you're doing is you've got like a feature wall or some bullshit. You know like, what you really need is like full commitment. Like, like Gerard, like your full piss yellow house.

Ben Sutherland:

You're in yellow.

Sam Brown:

You're in yellow.

Gerard Dombroski:

You're not sorry, sorry we had yellow perspex light up ceiling as well yeah, I think so.

Ben Sutherland:

Yeah, all right, at least that got done. Did this get built? Yeah, it got built. Yeah, we built it. That's all I know about it because I built the thing oh cool.

Gerard Dombroski:

The kitchen joinery unit was pretty epic. It was like particle board joinery. The idea was you go inside the joinery and then it's like the womb, entirely yellow mass. Then I went inside of my brain rehab centre.

Ben Sutherland:

It's complex wow, yeah, the toilet got cold, unfortunately.

Sam Brown:

I was going to say did they commit 100% or were there aspects of too hard basket?

Gerard Dombroski:

yeah, the toilet was that, it there's always ways around these things, like if you did like a we were going to paint it, but Gerard did leave like a resin uricryl lasts a long time on that. But you could also like re-fire it, you could glaze it. Yeah, all of these things like require you to go a little bit further, or quite a bit further, to like re-glaze a whole toilet.

Sam Brown:

Another option is coming back to our sort of you know things generating over time. You could just never clean it.

Ben Sutherland:

Yeah, exactly.

Gerard Dombroski:

It's probably yellow now let it naturally patina no, you're not wrong that was the idea right and I wanted to get all like the taps sandblasted and repowder coated. Oh, would have been amazing yeah well you just got to do it again.

Ben Sutherland:

Try and pull it off, pull it off properly.

Sam Brown:

It's funny, I mean it awes me clients that are willing to commit to that. I think it's the hardest thing is finding people. You know, gerard, you're talking about doing hydroforming, a studio. I mean you can do that because you can kind of do it for yourself. But it's finding someone that's as committed to the bit or as committed to the concept as as you is the tricky part, right yeah, you do need brave people.

Gerard Dombroski:

When those guys were were brave, yeah, so nice. The stars do need to align sometimes, but it goes both ways. Isn it Like you have to exude confidence for the bit?

Sam Brown:

Oh, absolutely.

Gerard Dombroski:

It's got to be believable If you're half-assing your side, then there's no way you're ever going to sell the idea.

Sam Brown:

I think that's the hard part as designers, in particular in New Zealand, is we're sort of ultimately pigeonholed into a lane, whether that be by the people that we work for or the clients that we have or the design guidelines or you know covenants or anything like that. You know there's, there's definitely scope, like you definitely can push it and you can do this crazy shit, but I think like too often we don't think that way because you know, the benign is so prevalent I personally think that I just struggle to think that way and so, like coming up with the actual concepts, the hardest part I guess.

Ben Sutherland:

Like and it takes a while to like, gerard, you're just amazing at it you've got like the I want to push it to the extreme, let's test this. And then all of a sudden, after you know a small period of time, you've got this concept. That's kind of like exploring your ideas, which is this is something we've talked about numerous times before in the pod. But actually, like coming to those conclusions, like I'm constantly asking myself what do I want to test? Like what is it I want to test, what is? So coming to those, answering those questions and coming to those conclusions is probably the hardest part yeah, I think it's all.

Gerard Dombroski:

It is a muscle, like all design thinking, I think, is muscle the more you like. I've actively tried to trick myself into coming up with weird ideas constantly for years yeah yeah I think you're, you're well trained at it.

Sam Brown:

But I also think back to your point, ben is and I've struggled with this as well as you want to come up with ideas, but I also I often find you sort of limit yourself because you, because you're not confident enough to just go fuck it, I'm just gonna do so, I'm just gonna do it, whereas like drad, I think, like you're a little bit more, I'll just do it and I'll just test it out yeah, like you're probably less, correct me if I'm wrong, but I kind of feel like you're maybe less afraid of the concept failing, then I think maybe I am and maybe you are ben well, I think like the building side.

Ben Sutherland:

maybe I'm just a little bit too practical sometimes, so I'm always thinking about like the best way to build something. And that best way to build something is always like comes back to what you can actually get built in this country, based on my current knowledge, so I don't actually other than like different ways to put something together. It always sits within the same kind of parameter, whereas Gerard's just like let's just give something completely different to go, which I think is epic, and yeah. Yeah, still got to get shit built, though, don't we?

Gerard Dombroski:

it's all about making other models to me, the making part is architecture. To me, like um, I don't know, everyone can have mean ideas, but if you can't get it built, it's like how much is that render worth?

Sam Brown:

yeah, well, that's it right. Like paper architecture, I mean to be fair, there's there's very much a realm of architecture that is purely paper. You know, there's some people that have kind of pegged their entire career on paper architecture. But realizing it, I think, is the true uh success of of an architectural concept yeah, like old zaha, I guess 10 years of. Yeah.

Gerard Dombroski:

But if your old man runs an oil company. It's probably.

Sam Brown:

You've got a bit of financial backing.

Gerard Dombroski:

Financial backing.

Sam Brown:

A biaga was like that Years and years of competition, entries and concepts and just ideas, but full confidence in those ideas.

Gerard Dombroski:

Yeah.

Sam Brown:

Full confidence and belief in your ability and it just and it pays off. But I think it takes a special person to kind of yeah, you know, not negatively, but carry an ego for that long without, like, an actual success or without an actual result. I reckon pretty hard yeah, I remember.

Gerard Dombroski:

I remember a friend a painting friend saying that persistence will always win, that they can't get rid of us. If they tried, we're weeds.

Ben Sutherland:

I don't know, sometimes it feels like it's just going to be easier to own the oil company and build your own architecture.

Gerard Dombroski:

Yeah, I'm sorry. Definitely definitely probably the easier. Easier way to go about things.

Sam Brown:

That's one option, yeah, all right, let's start drooling yeah. Where's?

Gerard Dombroski:

your property sale.

Sam Brown:

Digging for gold. Can we do an oil?

Ben Sutherland:

house, let's open up those old quarries.

Sam Brown:

Can we do an oil house? Let's open up those old quarries Because lots of stuff derived from oil. How far can you stretch this concept?

Ben Sutherland:

Yeah, wow, Rammed earth right. Do a rammed earth house Somehow Good at insulation values as well.

Gerard Dombroski:

Yeah, they'll straw, bale, lime, lime. Well, just a very earth house. You know, just yeah why lots of people go down the the, I guess earth ship that's that one uses, it's a whole movement.

Sam Brown:

You know, like that's, that's a whole proven thing.

Gerard Dombroski:

So there's yeah, everyone, I guess, angle towards these things, but then at some point they might drift away yeah, it's.

Sam Brown:

I mean, and I think what the reason that you drift away is back to what you're saying, ben is reality has to come into it a little bit, you know, and that's you know. Back to that, you know, you kind of drift away from your idea because you're like I actually have to build this thing or I have to make it real or something. And that's why I like that Robert Bruno house, because I don't think he cared about it being functional or even like a real realisation. He just kept welding shit on top of other stuff until he came up with a form you know.

Gerard Dombroski:

It's amazing how consistent the aesthetic is like for such a large structure like, like, right down to the the smaller details handrails, and like window mullions yeah like all the lines.

Sam Brown:

Yeah, exactly the same as if you saw the building from 100, 100 meters away yeah, seeing it from 100 meters versus seeing it from like, yeah, a meter, it's the same same form. Is that we're getting it?

Gerard Dombroski:

yeah, yeah, like the design language is super consistent. Yeah, I like that.

Ben Sutherland:

It's just how these new owners in their overlay flooring how can we, how can we get someone to pay us to build, or at least pay for the building of, like a pavilion or something, so we can actually like experiment with some of these ideas, the, the, everything house, the, all one material and all the same color, I mean the brick bay.

Sam Brown:

Folly is sort of like like that in a way, isn't it? It's sort of a a mechanism to to true, to you know, to test things out and to do something.

Gerard Dombroski:

Yeah, do something. Should we enter?

Sam Brown:

one started to look the same yeah, it would be cool if there was more, I mean, but I guess there's the risk of it becoming too sculptural, though you know at what point is. Is it a sculpture and is?

Gerard Dombroski:

is it?

Sam Brown:

architecture. Well, but I I'm but you know what I mean like not to say that sculpture can't be architecture, but, like you know, is it just a form that's not necessarily habitable, like, or how do you? I mean shit, this is a conversation, definitely for another time, like we need to draw the line at sculpture, at sculpture versus architecture what is habitable?

Gerard Dombroski:

can you crawl through your hallway?

Sam Brown:

your giants, your giant stick man. Can you crawl through those? Do you have to stand upright?

Gerard Dombroski:

through a room, definitely not well pod.

Sam Brown:

I grew up in a bedroom that I couldn't stand up and it was great.

Gerard Dombroski:

Yeah, I guess lots of little loft, tiny house loft, not standing up in that this is.

Ben Sutherland:

This is a good segue, actually, for are we going to test our new, new little segment? Hated or love it? Yeah, all right. Well, if anyone else I don't know if you guys have got any ideas, but I was thinking that, similar to the sculpture I hated or love it, the the arcade, like decorative architectural elements. Is that a hate or a love? I mean, like, look around, looking around you're talking classical moment. Yeah, but it doesn't need to be classical. It can be like a modern interpretation.

Gerard Dombroski:

There's just there's just no decorative elements in buildings these days yeah I think it's really I think, yeah, I'm all for the hate it do we just hate?

Ben Sutherland:

do we hate decorative elements now?

Gerard Dombroski:

well, I think people have been taught to hate. Well, architects, particularly, have been taught by universities to. Modernist is the direction, whereas maybe we're all bullied into it.

Ben Sutherland:

We were literally just talking about exposing the structure. It's hard to backtrack.

Gerard Dombroski:

I am actually all for complexity. Thomas Heatherwick's book where he's yarning about general people respond better to like older buildings that have like rhythm.

Sam Brown:

Ornamentation yeah.

Gerard Dombroski:

Yeah, it comes with like super intricate stone relief.

Sam Brown:

Do you think that's because it's easier to appreciate, like the craftsmanship and the workmanship?

Gerard Dombroski:

No, I think they're like digestible, like right sheer rhythm, but then the complexity like is like just a nice thing to look at, like your brain needs an element of complexity to like focus in on, whereas a purely glass box is, you know, might have some fancy detailing, but but nobody can see it.

Sam Brown:

Yeah right, so we're really talking about when you say decorative elements, it's ornamentation, it's ornamentation?

Ben Sutherland:

Yeah, it is, and there's some amazing examples of exactly what Gerard was talking about, where it is more of an intricate, a sculptural, whatever decorative element, but it's also like a part of the, the structure itself. So you can kind of combine those two things, I guess, like steel's probably, and even timber, if done well, uh is amazing at that sort of net, has that natural beauty, uh. But it's just. It feels like it's like a bit of a lost art that back in the day it was just the norm so everyone had it everywhere, even like the old school villas, you know, and now it's just not even a part of the process, so no one is willing to pay for it interestingly.

Sam Brown:

I think, though, if you know when we're thinking of, like, hot or not, love it or hate it. I would hate ornamentation on modern day architecture though, because it would feel too forced.

Ben Sutherland:

But would the architecture be different if it had ornamentation? You know it'd be designed with it integrated.

Sam Brown:

It could have been if we'd thought about this, you know, generations ago. But if we're thinking about, like, implementing this now, you know how could this evolve, moving forward, the entire architectural style would need to change to to support it. You know, because I think everything now is designed to look so simple and basic that to design that out, you'd have to completely, like, come up with a new design language.

Gerard Dombroski:

You know what I mean you know it's not like you're coming around and throwing up Corinthian columns everywhere.

Ben Sutherland:

No, well, that'd be nice. I wish I was.

Gerard Dombroski:

I guess postmodern was a literal reusing of some of those objects. But there's a middle ground where you can reference these shapes and forms, but postmodernism looked at it on.

Sam Brown:

There's a middle ground where you can reference these shapes and forms, but postmodernism looked at it on more of a building scale rather than like an elemental ornamentation type scale, really, didn't it? I mean, art Nouveau would be a good description of pure ornamentation.

Gerard Dombroski:

Yeah yeah. Art Nouveau is probably an example of something that, in my mind, still holds a lot of weight, and you could run that aesthetic now and it would be just as awesome.

Sam Brown:

Like yeah, that's who's who's, who's bold enough to, I'll give it a go.

Gerard Dombroski:

Well, I mean yeah, my example of like modern um automation, I guess, is maybe, maybe just in people's use of brick, which you see a lot in australia, like, yeah, like malbright and john wattle, yeah, like all using quite more complex different layers like john wattle did a proposal, or was it for the world expo or remember as a lecture a while ago, but super complex, cast bricks and then just repeating that mold over and over again. So it's still making a brick in the same way, just sending them some molds yeah, well, another example a super complex, but it's then it's like it's quite readable because it's over like a whole face.

Ben Sutherland:

So it brings that, I guess, modernist aesthetic, but bringing some real gnarly complexity yeah, another example I was thinking of is actually another one from you, gerard, this project that we're working on together at the moment, and we had a huge discussion. I was totally against these steel eyelids that you really wanted to put on and I was like there's no way, there's no way we're putting these eyelids on. They're basically like curved steel with, like you know, a little bit of I wouldn't say call them complex, but a nice rhythm, and I was against it. And then I was like, nah, let me model it, let me put it on there, and now I'm like I can't see the building without it.

Sam Brown:

It's just what was your? Intricate part to back to the the loving and hating ornamentation. What was your aversion to it like? Why did you dislike it to begin with?

Ben Sutherland:

because I the the parts where the islands are, the actual building itself has set back quite a bit. And I just wanted it to begin with because I the the parts where the eyelids are, the actual building itself is set back quite a bit and I just wanted it to disappear. But gerard wanted it to read as one full object and so hence the eyelids, and now that the eyelids are on there, like, yeah, 100 agree. So I don't know, that's just another example. I'm actually, I'm actually have been not into any kind of decorative architecture pretty much my whole career until now.

Ben Sutherland:

I'm becoming more yeah, I'm becoming more and more. I just think like there's some it's a bit of a lost beauty and yeah, I see my neighbor out there spending a week painting is nice picket fence. I'm like, okay, well, look, you know, if there's a bit more you know beauty and you're you're a bit more proud of your, your buildings, then maybe you'd spend a bit more time looking after it as well. I don't know.

Sam Brown:

So I think for me, like I appreciate ornamentation and its context and history, but I don't unless it's done incredibly well, I don't really like it. Now, I don't like eaves. I find eaves too much ornamentation.

Ben Sutherland:

Yeah. I didn't like eaves, but eaves are definitely back in. For me, that's a good one, actually. We'll bring that on up in there.

Gerard Dombroski:

I love a really big eave.

Ben Sutherland:

Yeah, I love a big eave?

Gerard Dombroski:

I don't think I like any medium-sized eaves, but I really like no eave or really big eave.

Ben Sutherland:

Have you owned a house without an eave? It kind of scares me.

Sam Brown:

My last house had no eaves and I was like, ah, it's impervious, it kind of scares me.

Ben Sutherland:

My last house had no eaves and I was like, ah, it's impervious, it's impervious. But, when you get really bad rain, there's just something like a little bit satisfying about a roof that actually just kicks the water right off your walls.

Sam Brown:

Ah, you're just being grossy, no no no.

Ben Sutherland:

It'll probably last an extra 50 years. So I don't know. We've got two now. We've got two. Where do we stand on decorations? I am pro, pro and Sam's no.

Gerard Dombroski:

I'm no yeah better luck next time. You are the weakest link and as your punishment you have to put ornamentation in your next project, all right.

Sam Brown:

Hate it or love it Eves.

Ben Sutherland:

Eves somehow slipped in there. Needs more discussion, but pro Eves.

Sam Brown:

Pro. I'm anti as well. I'm 0-2. Damn, it'd be boring if we agreed on all of these.

Gerard Dombroski:

That's great. Just to dig into the eaves quickly, I think eaves without spouting is awesome, like if you deal with your rainwater at the ground, gravel trap or something Zunthor's serpentine, the photos of it in the rain, where it's like square waterfall. It's like just like square waterfall. Where it's like all bucking down. It's just just moody.

Ben Sutherland:

You wouldn't want it somewhere where you're walking under, but the vibes, it's like a fireplace nice nice, oh well, that's, that's good pod, yeah, and I'm looking forward to hearing some results about what the audience thinks are pro decorations or pro eaves. We'll find out.

Sam Brown:

All right Is that the pod. Catch you next time. Ka-chow Ka-chow, ka-chow Ka-chow.

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Ben Sutherland

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Gerard Dombroski

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Sam Brown

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