andrew maynard architects
melbourne, australia
www.maynardarchitects.com
Andrew Maynard has been drawing, sketching, and illustrating things since he can remember. In college, studying architecture let him indulge his artistic passion and support himself. “Also,” Maynard adds, “I like the fact that architecture is a type of art that the everyday public must interact with.”
After graduating from the University of Tasmania, Maynard worked for big firms including Six Degrees Architects, Allom Lovell (now Lovell Chen), and Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners. During this time, he won regional and international awards, but he craved more creative freedom. As a result, he returned to his hometown of Melbourne to start his eponymous firm in 2002.
Andrew Maynard Architects focuses on sustainable, primarily residential design, but it’s also interested in myriad concepts that help green our planet—like a zero waste table, a suburb-eating robot, and a high-tech house with a low-brow name (Poop House) that builds itself using household waste. For his built projects, Maynard looks to inform clients that living in bold but efficient spaces with indoor-outdoor integration considerably improves the occupants’ quality of life. “In residential architecture we need to convince our clients that small is better,” Maynard says. “Large houses are unhealthy, unsustainable, they separate families, and most important they dislocate us from outdoor space.”
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years in practice: 10 / projects completed in 2011: 5 / firm size: 5 / areas of interest: residential, prefab, affordable
