VIDEO: Shaun Carter’s architecture firm, Carter Williamson, is expanding from designing mainly homes to tall apartments. That’s not such a stretch, he says, but what’s more interesting is the work to better understand sustainability from a cost benefit point of view, especially for clients.
Architectural firm Carter Williamson celebrated its 21st birthday at the classy Hinchcliff House near Circular Quay in Sydney in February. At the end of the night, guests were farewelled with a brochure showcasing some of the beautiful residential designs the studio has crafted in recent years.
Among the tranche of work, there’s also been a smattering of public buildings for state and local governments, as well as some commercial work, but the big focus has definitely been “designing houses for people to live in”, says co-founder Shaun Carter in this podcast interview.
In recent times, thanks to two design competition wins, the studio looks like it is moving into the bigger building’s territory. One win was for twin residential towers at Chatswood on Sydney’s lower north shore, and another is for a 55-storey 302-apartment building by the river at Parramatta west of Sydney.
It’s not such a big change, Carter says. For a start, he reveals that his professional life began as an engineer. It’s where he developed a strong interest in “dynamic structures” and understanding how tall buildings work.
“Buildings don’t just sit there,” he explains, “they move around quite a bit.”
Managing wind and earthquake loads is one thing, and “wonderful to think about and to design.”
Another challenge is how to make multiple apartments feel as personal as a standalone house.
“Everyone lives in their own home in a certain sort of way. And that’s something we’ve spent a lot of long time considering. So, when you get to do a bigger building, you’re thinking about how you live specifically in your home within a building full of many homes.
“So you want a really good front door to the street, and we spent a long time thinking about that: how do you make a really beautiful entry to an apartment building? How do you then make that next layer of connection from your front door, where you walk into the building, and you take the lift to your floor?”
But his work on sustainability has also yielded some satisfying thinking, especially in collaboration with Melbourne based Finding Infinity.
“What we loved about Will [Young] and the team is [learning] there’s a cost benefit analysis that goes with [sustainability].”
There’s the business-as-usual case, he says. There’s the stretch target, “what happens if you do everything?” and what happens if you spend “a reasonable sum of money”, and the payback period that flows from that?
“What was really surprising…is that the benefits are huge, and the payback period is short.
“So, the question for us is, the real cost of not acting is now, I think, is costing our clients’ money and position in the marketplace.”
Listen to what else Carter told us here.