An interest in architecture was sparked at age twelve, when in a city bookstore I casually opened up a book on Frank Lloyd Wright. Awestruck by page after page of amazing houses, the Clinton Walker House on the beach at Carmel, the Robie House in Chicago, the iconic Falling Water House, and so on. I decided then and there I would be an architect.
The first step along the path to becoming an architect was enrolment at the University of Sydney Faulty of Architecture. The late 1960s was the era of the ‘nuts and berries’ Sydney School, and ‘mid- century modern’ as these movements became known. In respect to ‘mid-century modern’, Harry Seidler was an influence, as were the Californian west coast ‘case study’ houses. Reflecting on the time at university brings to mind the great sense of freedom of thought and action that I enjoyed during those years, and the camaraderie, but oddly enough the resulting lifelong career in architecture and design would involve relatively few houses.
I always managed to make a good stab at design, often at the expense of other subjects. At one point I was awarded second prize in the Tasmanian Timber Association competition for the design of eco-cabins in Boudi Boudi National Park; elements of this design surfaced some thirty years later in the Mobys Beachside Retreat project at Boomerang Beach.
As a career overview of Tim Earnshaw, Architect, the website covers the years and some projects leading up to the establishment in 1990 of Tim Earnshaw and Partners. However in the main the website focusses on the work of the company from 1990 up until 2012, when Tim Earnshaw and Partners was purchased by friend and colleague Stephen Figgis of Figgis & Jefferson Architects.
Prior to 1990 I was fortunate to have experienced the mentoring of some very talented architects in excellent offices both here in Australia and overseas. These were productive learning years for me with the following companies:
Sabemo, Sydney 1970-1972 – Vic Moratelli and Rex Forbes.
My first job out of university introduced me to the refinement of 1970s Italian modern design. So very different to the design thinking that had been imparted by Sydney University. Sabemo was manipulating structure and materials into expressive fluid forms, experimenting with glass fibre reinforced concrete and glass fibre reinforced polymer, and creating sublime finely detailed spaces using luxurious materials in a subtle contemporary manner.
Vic was an Italian architect/businessman and MD/proprietor of Sabemo with a firm hand on design, whilst Rex, a New Zealand architect, was project architect for the Flotta Lauro office building in Perth that I was working on.
So, I was learning the big picture from Vic, and the nuts and bolts of architecture from Rex.
The Flotta Lauro building subsequently underwent adaptive reuse to become The Intercontinental Hotel, losing the beautiful Flotta Lauro Blue façade in the process.
Foster Associates, London 1972-1974 – Michael Hopkins.
As a student I was familiar with the work of Norman Foster from the Team Four days but had no idea how sought-after a job with Foster Associates was. I naively arrived on the office doorstep and was fortunate to land a position there. Unlike the mega business Foster Partners was to become, the office in those days was a studio of about 30 persons, drawn from many parts of the globe, all eager to learn.
This was a lively but disciplined design environment, exploring technology, evaluating options, searching out systems, pushing boundaries, engaging with top industrial designers, and creating rich beautifully detailed minimalist architecture.
It was Norman’s business partner, Michael Hopkins, with whom I developed a rapport. Michael was very much a mentor, always supportive of the young team. This was something I endeavoured to emulate at Tim Earnshaw and Partners, whenever the office employed students and graduate architects.
Ir.P B Offringa, The Netherlands 1974-1980 – Piet Offringa
Marriage brought me to The Netherlands at a time of economic downturn and little prospect of employment in architecture. My wife was a university student in Groningen, a provincial city in the north of the country and well removed from the activity centres around Amsterdam and Rotterdam.
After several months of job searching, I was interviewed by Piet Offringa, principal of an architectural heritage and restoration practice. Piet had completed postgraduate studies in planning at Harvard and was keen to establish a contemporary architecture branch of the company. He was interested in the work I’d been involved with at Foster Associates, which he found so very different to prevailing Dutch modern design of the early 1970s. Other than work by firms such as Herman Hertzberger and Aldo van Eyck, and unlike today, Dutch architecture was very conservative in the early 1970s — So began six years of wonderful experience.
The company operated out of four offices in The Netherlands (Groningen, Leeuwarden, Kampen and Amsterdam) and my role entailed designing and managing new building projects across all four locations. I was subsequently elevated to associate director status a few years later, thus giving me my first experience in business management.
Mitchell Giurgola Thorp, Canberra 1982-1986 – Romaldo Giurgola
By early 1980 Piet Offringa was looking to sell the company and move permanently to the USA. The effect of this was to see key staff resign and move on, so toward the end of 1980 I returned to Australia.
This was not an easy time and the first two years working with a large commercial architectural firm in Sydney proved unsatisfactory. During this period MGT had won the architectural competition for the nation’s New Parliament House in Canberra. I was familiar with the competition brief, as The Netherlands office had considered entering the competition, but lack of time and resources prevented this from happening. MGT’s winning entry I considered to be a masterful solution to a highly complex brief, so I applied for a team leader position. Suddenly the family moved to Canberra, where I was one of the 145 architects engaged on the project.
Involvement on such a project was a once in a lifetime experience. However, in some ways New Parliament House brought me full circle back to the Sabemo days. Under the guidance of Romaldo Giurgola, the building design and detailing embodied a contemporary Italian/American design ethos in the creation of volume and space, using exquisitely detailed fine materials. It is a modern classical building of its time.
Tim Earnshaw and Partners
These working experiences also generated some lifelong friendships with architects such as John and Jenny Wharton (Foster Associates), Bernhard Anliker, and Johans Kreek (Ir. P B Offringa), all of whom went on the establish their own successful firms. Also, Sieglinde Whittle and Rob Langford, Rob becoming a builder / architect whilst Sieglinde went on to become a director of the firm in Canberra, post New Parliament House.
In an overall sense, the thing I’ve found most invigorating about architecture is simply that each situation and every project involves new learning experiences. In many ways these learning experiences influenced my work ethic and a professional approach to architecture that would lead to establishing my own company, Tim Earnshaw and Partners.
Despite undertaking some sizable projects over the years, I determined to remain a ‘hands on’ architect. This I owe to the years I worked in The Netherlands. As a result, Tim Earnshaw and Partners remained deliberately small and focused on the jobs at hand. The office never exceeded ten people; however, success could be measured by the high number of repeat clients with whom the company developed relationships over the years.
Nonetheless there were times between 1990 and 2012 in which project partnerships and joint ventures with other firms were established, the most notable being assisting Tim Schwager (Schwager Associates Architects) on a series of major urban design and residential projects in China.
In 2012 Tim Earnshaw and Partners Architects was purchased by Figgis & Jefferson, Architects, the firm becoming Figgis Jefferson Tepa. At the same time, we established TimPlan Consultancy to undertake architectural consultancy services, including a role as consultant design director at Figgis Jefferson Tepa.
Now, ten years on from 2012, there remains an ongoing involvement with architecture and the learning curve is still alive, and it is time to look back with pleasure over the last 45+ years at the volume and variety of projects undertaken for many wonderful clients.