Austin Maynard Architects

Since launching in 2002, the Austin Maynard Architects team has built up an exciting and diverse portfolio. The practice is not inhibited by building type, but rather navigates residential, retail and commercial arenas and is rich in envelope-pushing conceptual designs. Austin Maynard Architects explore architecture of enthusiasm. Treating each project as a unique challenge, and working directly with clients and occupants, our team offer individual possibilities and thoughtful responses to people, brief and place. We embrace deliberative design and look to issues of liveability, culture, heritage, community connection, mental health and cures to modern isolation. We pride ourselves in sustainable design and experimentation. Ideas are concept rich, left of centre, playful and environmentally conscious; styles and singular themes are avoided. At Austin Maynard we specialise in ideas rather than building type, whether the project is a house in Fitzroy, a library in Japan, a protest shelter in Tasmania or a plywood bicycle.

Practice founder Andrew Maynard gained global notoriety for his polemic work (Styx Valley, CV08 robot) years before achieving international acclaim for residential projects Tower House and Mills, The Toy Management House. “Polemic is an attack on something, hopefully a critical one,” he says. “But it’s the idea of constantly agitating that safe space, keeping oneself honest by causing trouble and being playful.”

Andrew is a founding board member of Nightingale Housing, a social enterprise that exists to support, promote and advocate for high-quality housing that is ecologically, socially, financially sustainable.

Together with co-director Mark Austin and the team, Austin Maynard Architects continue to look beyond the brief and address the bigger picture. “As architects we seek to make ourselves relevant to the world, to make spaces that engage and are compelling beyond their function.”

At Austin Maynard Architects we ask users to be the authors of their spaces and their city. We work directly with occupants to ensure we understand their wants and needs. It is through this collaborative approach that the richness in our work emerges. We ask for open participation from clients and encourage them to draw, research, question and engage.