STORIESINDESIGN
Thoughtful, unscripted conversation with people from across the design community.
STORIESINDESIGN
Phillip Mathieson
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The founder and design director of Mathieson Architects joins Timothy Alouani‑Roby at The Commons in Sydney. Phillip Mathieson opens up on his career in architecture as well as his design approach and wider influences, including a formative experience living in Jakarta.
Image: Timothy Kaye.
STORIESINDESIGN
Or definitely things that are fashionable if we're just not interested. And you know, uh sometimes that leaves you a little bit standing alone on the side. And in my mind, sometimes you pursue these high-fashion things and the jobs will be out of fashion by the time the project's finish.
SPEAKER_00Hello, and welcome to another episode broadcast from Gaddy Country at the Commons in Surrey Hills, Sydney. And today I'm joined by Philip Matheson, founder and design director of the eponymous practice. Please do enjoy. Philip, welcome. Thanks for joining me today.
SPEAKER_01Good to be here.
SPEAKER_00I'll start very simply by asking you who are you? Tell me a bit about yourself and your background.
SPEAKER_01So uh I'm an architect. Um been practicing for some years now, but uh had my own practice for the last 15 years or so.
SPEAKER_0015 years, okay. So what were you were you practicing elsewhere before that for some time?
SPEAKER_01Uh worked for some other studios before then. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Okay, all right, great. So before before we get into the architecture proper, um, let me ask you about yourself personally a little bit as well. Where did did you grow up in Sydney?
SPEAKER_01I didn't. I actually grew up in Melbourne. Okay. Um I grew up in Melbourne uh probably when I was a teenager, I was a brief stint when I lived in Asia for a couple of years and um back to Melbourne and went to uni at Melbourne University.
SPEAKER_00Okay. So where was the Asian stop off? Jakarta. Jakarta, okay, for a for a significant period or uh two years. Oh wow, okay. Okay. Yeah. Now how old were you, can I ask you?
SPEAKER_01I would have been 16, 17, something like that. So high school.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, okay, okay. So I suppose a kind of formative time. There's is that an experience that you feel has been significant shaping you or not so much?
SPEAKER_01Um, I think so. Probably just because probably when I grew up, particularly in Melbourne in the suburbs, it's quite insular. And I think that was uh like an amazing opportunity to kind of see a bigger world out there. And um just it's a totally different lifestyle to growing up in Australia, and so it kind of I guess made you think about the world in a slightly different way, and there's more opportunities out there than probably what you just thought there was growing up in Melbourne.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and the the cliche is around right that Indonesia is a closest neighbor, effectively, to pot to at least the north of Australia, and yet um feels culturally very different in a lot of ways. Uh so did Jakarta feel like what kind of things left an impression? Was it the sheer busyness or was it that was it the climate or the people?
SPEAKER_01Obviously, the climate's a very easy one, like very different of you you knew exactly what the weather was going to be, was always gonna be 31 degrees. And humid. Just whether it rains or not was probably the differentiator. Um, so obviously, I guess there was partly the uh the cultural the cultural differences, um, you know, living in a very different kind of uh city, a lot of people very, very chaotic, which I actually loved. I thought it was amazing. Um, I think it was probably the antithesis of walking down a suburban street in Melbourne and not ever seeing anyone, and you couldn't ever go anywhere without um being amongst a throng of people. Um, and also probably just I went to an international school. So, you know, you just I guess meeting and mixing with, you know, of a huge array of cultures um from all over the world. So yeah.
SPEAKER_00Okay, okay. So you come back to Australia, you go to uni, was that directly to do architecture? Was that always a clear path forward?
SPEAKER_01No, it wasn't.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_01Uh it was and it wasn't. Um, I took a long way around. I um actually have an arch uh an uncle who's an architect. And I think it was always a thing bubbling in the background for me, but I think I probably had a certain amount of awe and respect for my uncle, and I just never thought that that could be somewhere that I would end up. And I ended up, I did a year of science, which I absolutely hated with personal.
SPEAKER_00Okay, not even engineering, like science proper. Science.
SPEAKER_01And um uh and I think halfway through the year I just kind of realized that um, you know, I'm sitting at my desk sketching plans out when I should be studying biology, and it was a kind of a moment when I kind of realized, okay, maybe I should be uh pursuing this architecture thing.
SPEAKER_00Well, half of the year is not bad. That's a pretty uh at that age is like a pretty quick turnaround time to realize. Okay, okay, okay. So then you go into architecture and um what kind of places did you work at or what what kinds of projects and sectors were you working in originally?
SPEAKER_01So originally, so when I finished university, it was pretty much the height of the recession in the early 90s. Um so it was very hard to get a job. Uh most of my friends ended up going to Hong Kong to find work. I it was really a timing thing, and obviously the connection. I ended up working for my uncle for a couple of years, and he was a director of a at the time a pretty large commercial firm. Um, so part of my time was doing that, and uh I did a stint where they were part of the joint venture of architects that worked on Crown Casino Melbourne. So I got swept into the vortex of Crown Casino for a while. So it was a kind of very commercial-based uh, I guess, initial experience. Okay.
SPEAKER_00So is it fair to say that when you when you launched Matheson, did it already have a residential focus? Was that always the plan?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, look, when so when I first moved to Sydney, the projects and the offices I worked for were definitely more residential. Um and I yeah, I think I probably have just a strong affinity with working on houses. I mean, at the moment this we we do a kind of mix of projects, but probably six to seventy percent of our work is single kind of residence, kind of private work. Um I just kind of really enjoy the I don't know, that thing about building a relationship with the clients and going through the journey with them. Um, you kind of know who the end user is going to be. Um it's much more, I guess, an emotional connection.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, less anonymous than than big commercial scale architecture. I did read in some um a profile, or maybe it was on your website about this this this idea of having repeat clients or or at least long-term relationships with clients. Can you tell me a bit more about uh maybe the types of clients, if not the individuals themselves? But what kind of relationships do you have?
SPEAKER_01Uh so probably I'd say, you know, 60%, 70% of our work is either repeat clients or referrals from existing clients or previous clients. Um they tend to be, I don't know, anywhere from mid-30s to kind of 60, 70-year-old bracket. So it's a bit of a range, but um a lot of it's single houses. We do we do do some projects which are just fully interior-based, so sometimes apartment refurbs and fit-ats, and and then we do a little bit of multi-res work as well.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so just on that uh second last point there about the line between interiors and um architecture per se, can you tell me a bit about where you see that distinction in your own work? Like, was it always the plan to work across that as a fluid boundary, or did you see yourself in more kind of solid hardcore architecture and you've drifted towards interiors? What's the story there?
SPEAKER_01Probably partly coming out of the last firm that I worked at was definitely, in fact, was probably known more as an interior firm. Um, I suppose I have a very holistic approach to design. So we won't take on an architecture project for a house unless we get to do the interiors because um I just think you get a better result when it's the single vision that you know carries the whole thing forward. And I know sometimes we we won't do interiors for a house that another architect's worked on also because you know, I feel like it's impossible to kind of get that holistic approach, you know, like where the window's placed or the door and how you kind of come in, it's not so you can still very well to design an interior, but we like to kind of really kind of mesh it in with the architecture as well.
SPEAKER_00That makes a lot of sense. Does does it all also extend for you to things like object design or even furniture design? And is there an amateur interest in that or or have you had experience in that professionally?
SPEAKER_01Look, we have done a little bit of furniture design. It's pretty hard. Hard than people think. Yeah. And I think it makes me have like a huge amount of admiration for people that do do furniture design because it's a real skill, like the you know, um just getting the proportions right and the comfort and all those things. It it's like taking the idea of a house and just putting it down into miniature. So um we have done it. I wouldn't say that you know, we're the world's best furniture designers. Uh it's not something I'd probably want to do every day, but it's interesting to, you know, have a crack at every now and again.
SPEAKER_00Okay. So are there any projects that maybe you can highlight in your work or talk us through a little bit that I suppose are either representative of some of those things you've mentioned or are just particular favourites of yours?
SPEAKER_01I feel like, look, probably as a starting point for me personally, probably the if I say the seminal project I've ever worked on was I I was got to do that classic thing where I designed my parents' house at some stage. And I feel like it was an amazing opportunity to um, you know, you it was your first attempt at kind of distilling some initial thoughts and how you might approach things rather than someone telling you this is what you're gonna work on. Um, and they were they were really generous in terms of um they didn't put too many guardrails on what I could do. Uh and we're still talking about it. Or at least you ignored them if they did. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but I think since then, like across the different projects we've worked on, look, I think it's interesting that we kind of go through a little bit of a wave occasionally where um some pro some people probably think of our work as being very black and white, which we have a lot of projects which are very high contrast. Um we're working on lots of projects in the moment, which are probably way down the kind of much warmer things, lots of limestone, really kind of a more of a natural palette. But um I think one of the things that I always find hard, it it's very hard to I guess capture I find hard to capture our work um on a camera because for me, which is I guess the challenge that I take on board, it's like what is a space actually like to physically be in. And those types of things aren't that easy to capture on film. Um so for me it definitely is, you know, like I spoke about before, the holistic thing. So we're we're big into you know the architecture kind of uh enmeshed with the the interiors, but also how does it interact with the landscape? And it's always as you it's like thinking about when you move through a space, you know, what is what are you moving towards, what's the journey like? You know, it's always thinking about you know a window at the end of a hallway or what what a room looks like, or when you're sitting in a space, kind of what are you looking at at?
SPEAKER_00Um so on that point about the camera, that that's interesting. What what kinds of qualities do you feel uh fail to come through in your work? So what kinds of sensations happen in the real physical life example that are sometimes hard to translate by camera in your work?
SPEAKER_01I think it is a bit of that the idea of the journey and walking through a space which is very hard to capture. You know, like you could be sitting in the living room, but what you're you don't get to experience is when you actually walked in the front door, and what was that like and what what was the journey that you took to get from the front door to that living space that's now the shot on the camera, and you kind of miss the little bits that um might just all build up from small pieces to be a bigger experience overall. And I think what you miss in a in a particularly in a still photograph is you you know, as a human, you're constantly you're aware of your periphery, which the camera literally just shows you what it wants you to see. And a lot of our work is not necessarily about just one particular viewpoint, it's how how the whole thing works in the round and yeah.
SPEAKER_00Well, I wrote about your Avalon tennis pavilion not long ago, and I was probably not dissimilar thing, actually. I was trying to get my head around how this intervention um you know related to what I believe was a main house that was separate, and then obviously a tennis court, and then the surroundings of all this greenery and I think the the the harbour or the water not far away as well. Um can you tell me a bit more about that project actually, like in terms of that experience of of passing through and and being there?
SPEAKER_01So actually, probably with that project, it's one of the rare ones where uh we were working on a piece where another architect was involved. So SJB had done the architecture of this tennis pavilion. Um, and it was a client that we've done a lot of work for in the past, and they were pretty clear, I guess, the direction they wanted to be, and they knew that we were going to be able to work well in terms of uh creating that. I guess with that, it were still, even though it was working with SJB, you know, we wanted to be respectful of how they had approached, I guess, the building shell. Um, but at the same time, we had our own kind of guess firm ideas about what it would be like to move through the space and you know what are the different parts of that experience like. And that one, I again sometimes it's just that, I guess, curation of what an experience is. And so you're trying not for everything to be just an homogenous kind of uh vanilla experience. So that one in particular, it's on two levels. We wanted to have a strong connection between the levels, so it's like a spiral stair that connects them. Um, but the upper floor is is much, much smaller in footprint, it probably integrates with the architecture a bit more because it has this kind of copper roof, and we kind of brought the copper into the interior ceiling. Whereas the lower floor, which is much more, if I say kind of because it's kind of cut back into the rock, subterranean. And that was supposed to be more of a um I don't know, multi-purpose space. They didn't necessarily have a clear idea of how they were going to use it, they just wanted it to be able to function in many, many different ways. Anything from a you know, the world's flashest granny flat to um somewhere where you know adult kids could hang out with their friends or movie nights or have a party. Um, and so it was kind of like how do you do that without it feeling um, I don't know, almost like groundless. Um, and we had this kind of limestone that kind of wrapped all the walls that Samblasted, but the floor was kind of um this honed finish. And again, just doing a way that the view out to the kind of eucalyptus trees and out through the water still kind of is always the focus rather than you having to do too many tricks on the inside to keep people's attention.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's obviously quite a distinctive, distinctively Australian setting. And then we've got this Jakarta connection, and then I think I'm right in saying that I've seen a project you've done in Greece as well, is that right?
SPEAKER_01Um the Greece one's never been built. We've got a DA for it. Um we have done a project in Spain uh Cost Rava, um, and we've actually got one that's under construction in uh Croatia at the moment.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so what are the threads connecting all of these? Uh like um does it continue to be word of mouth with clients, or is it is it some other form of connection that's bringing you to these different jobs?
SPEAKER_01Uh all of those projects they're with clients that we've done work with in Australia and they just happen to have European connections, which um great for us.
SPEAKER_00Um site visits involved?
SPEAKER_01Um yes, not not always. Um sadly the with the uh invent of um zoom and teams, um you can communicate with the builder quite easily without necessarily to have uh boots on ground, but it it is good when you get to go there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, okay. I do sometimes like to ask uh uh I know it's a slightly nonsensical question, but this idea of what an ideal project would be in amongst all of that. So you talked about how your design approach is very much about, you know, um connecting to the context that it's in and the landscape and whatnot, such as Avalon. And then you've got these disparate examples in different parts of Europe, and then as I say, you've got that Jakarta connection in your past. Do you have a sense of like what some hypothetical dream brief would be, like which part of the world it might be in, or what kind of setting, or are they all equally rich in their own different ways for you?
SPEAKER_01Uh that would be hard to yeah, cook up a particular thing. I I guess we've been fortunate to have some of those um international projects. Probably, yeah, it would be interesting to do a project in Asia, um, which we we haven't done, but yeah, no, that would probably be an interesting experience. Um, different climate. So yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, maybe there's one to come in Indonesia yet. We'll see. Um so tell me a bit more about your design philosophy uh in more conceptual terms, I guess. So we we've spoken a bit there about practical examples of of work. I know the word uh timeless comes up a little bit when I again looked on your website and some descriptions of projects. You've mentioned the uh stark use of tones or at times. Um can you tell me a bit about what kinds of things do you think are common threads that you might call your own design philosophy or your own kind of approach to design?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you're asking the hard questions today. Um look, I I think one of the things is I don't particularly I mean, maybe maybe it's a background thing that I'm just not conscious of, but I probably don't take like I'm not like an architect that has a very uh academic approach to some philosophical. There's no ism to you, there's no a school. No. Um in fact, I think the one of the things I probably hated when I was at uni was um, you know, the rise of postmodernism and deconstructivism. Yeah, you would have been right in the middle of that. They I just I I've probably struggled through the end of uni because that was kind of in its full flight, and those things just didn't interest me at all. Um, so I guess for me, a lot of it a lot of our work we spend a lot of time um planning, and a lot of I guess the uh the approach that we take is really about nailing the plan and getting the relationships between spaces. Um that's always the driver of of everything. And to some degree the kind of materials it can almost be secondary to that. And I would much rather, you know, get a plan right and hand it over to a client because I know the thing is gonna work how we want it to work, and whether it's terrazzo or limestone or marble, um, that worries me less.
SPEAKER_00Okay, that's an interesting way into a way into projects. So it's the the primary thing for you is like spatial relationship, spatial layout.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And and I think from there, you know, obviously the clients are gonna have, I guess, uh preferences on, you know, materials or palettes or how they might want the the space to feel. But we would generally always try to avoid materials or directions that were probably of the moment, and that's probably quite deliberate. It will be a thing about sometimes some new material pops up, and you actually ask yourself, is this gonna last or is this just a flash in the pan? And if it's a flash in the pan, we're probably gonna go, no, let's not use it.
SPEAKER_00So that's uh trends in materials, and then the that we also uh alluded to trends in uh architectural theory, shall we say, with postmodernism and whatnot. So to flip my previous question the other way around and to ask you like what what is it that you dislike? What is it that you definitely don't stand for? Maybe those those are a couple of answers, maybe. But is there anything else that springs to mind if I were to say like what's definitely not Your design philosophy. What kinds of design do you kind of dislike?
SPEAKER_01Um well definitely things that are fashionable if we're just not interested. And you know, uh sometimes that it uh leaves you a little bit standing alone on the side. Um but I'd rather work on a project that you know that in 10 years' time it has as much validity or the or the person's gonna be as happy with the outcome rather than, you know, like sometimes the projects you work on might be five or six years from the start of the job until the end. And in my mind, sometimes you pursue these high fashion things and the jobs will be out of fashion by the time the projects finish.
SPEAKER_00And that presumably helps with maintaining these long-term relationships with repeat clients. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, and I think the other thing, you know, which is probably is not on the fashion thing, but just generally, for me, it's not about ego. And I think maybe that's one of the one of the things I like about working on houses versus versus working on say the commercial side of things. I feel like it's very easy as an architect to for your ego to get in the way. Um, because it's all about big statements and how do you stand out? Whereas for me, it's I just don't think our job is about standing out.
SPEAKER_00Okay, interesting way of putting it, yeah. Let me ask you all then about very much relatedly, your points and sources of inspiration. First of all, maybe within architecture and design, are there any particular periods or places or individual architects that you look to in the past for uh inspiration or places to visit when you're on holiday, even?
SPEAKER_01Um, yeah, visiting projects when you're overseas is always like, you know, high on the agenda if if you're in the right place at the right time. Uh, I know probably one of my standout architectural experiences uh was going to the Farnsworth House outside of Chicago. And that was that was probably only maybe, I don't know, 16 years ago or something like that, that I probably went there and it was just um, you know, the thing is tiny and um the journey to get there is pretty ordinary. And even the setting to some degree is not that amazing. But that the the kind of I guess the combination between what it actually feels like to be in that thing. Same thing, I almost feel like photographs don't always do it justice because you know you just don't have the ability to turn around and look in different directions or what it feels like to approach the house and the kind of lead up to it. Um, but just yeah, the way the things put together and the materials and just the compact nature of the plan. Um, yeah, I just absolutely loved it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, great. And we'll travel more generally then, not just within architecture and design inspiration. Um are there any places that you find yourself returning to for regular holidays and um favorite cities or countries around the world that inspire you, I should say?
SPEAKER_01Um probably a couple of replete repeat places would be um I go to France a lot. Um that's partly I have a partner who's French background, so um that's a uh convenient uh reason to go, but I absolutely love um you know the I guess that, you know, particularly Paris, just the way that city works, um, and the on one hand the chaos of the city with the kind of old medieval kind of base, but then this kind of um new insertion over the top of it. Um just yeah, and the lifestyle aspect of that city, um, which probably is one of the things that feeds into, I guess, our work in that we do approach it from a lifestyle perspective as opposed to just, you know, it's architecture with a capital A that you know you just kind of sit and look at and admire. It's for us, it's it is about how you live in a space and so how it's going to be used. And yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Okay, well, I think the final question is to just ask you about the future then. Um I'm not sure if you said, sorry, uh, actually what year you you launched the practice. I'm not quite sure how many years we're up to, but you can you can tell me that, and then you can also talk a bit about what you see in store for the future.
SPEAKER_01Um, so practice launched in 2010. Um, what's in store for the future? Uh look, I I'm not sure. I think it's for for me, it's always been a bit of an evolution. And um just working with the opportunities that that come your way and the types of projects that might evolve out of that. Um, you know, we're working on a couple of amazing houses at the moment, which are that kind of quintessential Sydney um landscape kind of harbor interaction. One's up on Pitwater, another one's kind of Middle Harbor, um, and you know, just great sites to be involved in with amazing projects. Um, yeah, and lots of other interesting things on the horizon.
SPEAKER_00Great, okay. Well, you'll be at the the 20th year milestone in no time at all. So um, well, best of luck with it, and thanks again for joining me today. Thanks, Timothy. Thank you for listening to this episode of Stories in Design. Please subscribe and review, and you can find out all about what we do at indesignlive.com.