South African-born, Brisbane architect Shaun Lockyer has been creating buildings for more than 35 years, priding himself on making buildings that blend and enhance rather than dominate the landscape.
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Produced by Huw Reynolds.
What constitutes good architecture?
The legacy of it is hopefully timeless, enduring, sustainable in a sort of three-dimensional sense or maybe four-dimensional sense, and perhaps most importantly, resonates with people.
I think if it’s timeless, if people love it and they want to keep it alive and relevant forever, that has to be the best examples of the best work.
Amaroo
White concrete, large travertine slabs and stone cladding define the material palette, all of which is shrouded with the landscape.
What are the fundamental elements you need to consider before you even get a brief from a client?
One great architect said, “You shouldn’t be allowed to build anything before you’re fifty.” Because there’s so much learning, there’s so much ego one’s got to try to work through and work beyond. One of the things I’ve tried very hard to do is build up a body of knowledge about ways we can solve problems, be they aesthetic, practical, or more aspirational. Go to every project with a great deal of knowledge, but with as little preconceived ideas as humanly possible.
The best processes are ones that are open [and] collaborative.
Like a good meal, you decide what it is you’re going to make before you order the ingredients.
Where things go wrong is if you start with an idea, and the idea deviates to the point where the direction you thought you were going and the tools that you’re using are no longer relevant.
The building is very much a tool. Yes, it’s the end result, but really what we are ultimately working towards is a way that we want to occupy the earth.
A building is merely a component of that lived experience, and a tree could be as valuable a component as the building itself.
To think of architecture as completely binary, that you plonk a house on it, and there’s the job done, is to be a disservice to what architecture is meant to be.
Este
The most easterly private residential block of land in Australia. The material palette is restrained, tactile and timeless, with the intention that the patina of time will transform the built form a “green” canvas.
Do you have a set of rules or parameters that you work within?
There’s existing DNA through north of 35 years [as an architect] … so for me, everything’s a kind of incremental evolution. We consider ourselves reasonably inventive, but we are rigorously pragmatic, we’re systematic, and we are very rational. I regularly use reference points [of] brands much better than mine. When you look at a Rolex Submariner, they’ve made them for roughly 75 years, and if you took a “new” 75-year-old model and you took a new 2026 model, at a glance, you’d have a hard time distinguishing between which one is actually the newer. With cars, Porsche 911s… once again, there’s this slow kind of incremental improvement where engineers took something that started with a fundamentally bad idea, being a rear-engined car, and then, just fettled with it and, and went, “Look, we’re not giving up on this,” and turned it into arguably one of the best driving cars on the planet. Why that’s so significant for me is that I think a good idea well-executed is better than a brilliant idea poorly executed.
Witta
The design draws inspiration from Brazilian modernism, but seeks to ground itself within the local context, climate and culture.
Are there any architects or designers who’ve influenced you?
The work of Le Corbusier has made such an impact that I’ve formed concrete examples of his sculptures into the walls of my own house.
The work of Alvar Aalto is very significant from Finland, and Louis Kahn from the States.
Probably the most influential architect for my work is a Brazilian guy called Marcio Kogan. He’s in São Paulo, which is a very similar latitude [and] climate to Brisbane, so the relevance of his work is very significant.
Shorehaven
Landscape is central to the experience of this home, shaping not only the ground plane but also the façades, where a lush, organic veil softens the intensity of the tropical sun.
What’s been your most ambitious project?
The one we finished in Byron Bay, that’s been getting a bit of press lately, which is Este.
It’s two sort of co-joined houses built on the most easterly block of land on the continent of Australia in arguably one of the busiest streets… and we were building on a site that’s got more than twenty meters of altitude backing onto a literal rainforest. There’s [also a] house we’re building in Brisbane that’s, very substantial, where we’ve actually manipulated an entire landscape to create a house that has the appearance of being a much smaller house than it actually in truth is. As part of that, we’ve created a river system. The truth of it is that to get to that point, we’re having to do a lot of very complex and challenging work.
Ross
The design turns its back to the western side and opens up its expansive, easterly edge to the water. An elevated, carefully curated concrete and planted fringe raises the occupants’ eye level from the road to the water.
What is the project closest to your heart?
My own now. I’ve waited thirty-five years to build my wife’s and my own house. Most architects are lucky if they ever get to build their own house at all, let alone build a house that represents what they think is equal to the best that they can ever do and without compromise.
That doesn’t mean just woefully spending money. We found a really special block of land in the inner city of Brisbane, in Teneriffe. We’ve been lucky to build what is by today’s standards a relatively small home, but it embodies every value system that I hold dearly about what I think makes a good home and that’s been a very strong connection with the landscape. There’s a lot of landscape in a very small space… cascading plants and biophilic design incorporated. There’s not a single piece of plasterboard or applied paint in the house that warms the cockles of my heart. Everything’s timber, stone, and concrete. There’s not a white thing in the house except for a washing machine, which again, is a strong-held belief that I think the materials and the colours and things that we use around us should reflect a more natural state of being. Perfect surfaces are, by their nature, in my opinion, a kind of antagonistic thing with the world around us, because the world around us is gritty and windy and rainy and muddy at times, and it’s imperfect, and it’s beautifully imperfect. I like the idea that our work can be perfectly imperfect.
When you dent the timber, or you chip the concrete, or the house gets a patina on it, or the aluminium ages, it ages gracefully.
A great piece of architecture ages well, and at the risk of maybe a broader moral debate, I like the idea that, even as humans, we don’t marginalise things showing their age; we actually embrace them. We credit them, and we recognise them for whatever wisdom or lessons they can teach, and that’s something I’m trying very, very hard to embody.
Arakoon
Terraced down across three levels, the house seeks to nestle into the dune system and anchor itself in its place, wanting to be subservient to its sublime, natural location.
Final thought?
While we’re proud of what our buildings look like, for me, the best architectural outcome is where one doesn’t see anything. If… overwhelmingly our experience of the world once we’ve finished building is one of a building hidden by landscape and shrouded by landscape, I like what that does for privacy, for intimacy, for just connection to things more beautiful than [a] building.
Mosman House
The house mediates between grounded courtyard living on the north and a dramatically cantilevered edge that addresses the enviable water views to the south.
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