Life Matters

Peter Stutchbury connects what is important to his clients with the buildings he designs for them.

- Karen McCartney

APART FROM THE BURSTS of noise, the best place to interview an architect is amid the construction site of their own home, or maybe it is just the best place to interview Peter Stutchbury. A tour of a very personal build exposes all sorts of nuanced preoccupations and there is something anatomical about seeing the detailed workings of a building in the making. As we move through the site Stutchbury gives poetic descriptions of how the architecture will facilitate beautiful moments in the life of his family, friends and community and how light, breezes, plants and views have been managed so the experience of nature is woven into the fabric of the building.

“I had designed a couple of futuristic schemes but realised I didn’t want a showy house but rather one that presented a tough, functional shell in its public face. It is when you step inside the front door that the house starts to perform. I have designed more than 180 schemes for this land and this has to embody the essence of all of them in the most elemental of forms,” he says.