FLAIR DEAL

Shaped by exposure to ancient European design as a child, this architect's mission is to create joyous structures for the common good that stand the test of time.

- KAREN MCCARTNEY

IT’S MY BELIEF that we are all shaped by life’s early experiences and so I always like to understand how architects came to choose the profession – or how it chose them. 

Architect Sam Crawford is clear that a decision by his parents to take him and his six siblings for a year out in Europe was so formative to his cultural outlook that he characterises it as ‘life changing’. “It was the late 70s and southern Europe was cheap. We stayed in an old monastery in Tuscany, halfway between Florence and Siena, and with the luxury of time also rented houses within reach of major cities, spending days in museums and art galleries,” he says. Only seven years old, and the youngest of the tribe, he still recalls the impact of the Pantheon in Rome.

All these years later something has distilled at the core of his practice, Sam Crawford Architects, and the working mantra for the ultimate in achievement is “a functional building that brings joy and comfort to users, is sensitive to the environment and stands the test of time”.

An early mentor was architect and educator Peter Stutchbury whose acute sensitivity to place and materials continues to influence the practice Sam set up in 1999 after an epiphany while trekking in Nepal. The practice’s growth has been slow and steady, adding a staff member per year so that, with pleasing symmetry, there is a team of 25 (of whom he is very proud) at the 25-year mark of its inception.