streetchat

Bill Morrison and Darrel Conybeare, co-founders and directors of Street Furniture Australia, are celebrating 40 years of design practice with their architecture and urban design studio, CM+. The two young architects, shaped by formative experiences in the US and UK working with major players such as Eames, William Holford & Partners and the Farrell/Grimshaw Partnership – started their own venture in 1980 to shape cities through the still-fledgling practice of urban design. Their work includes the redesign of Macquarie Street and Circular Quay in Sydney for the 1988 Bicentennial, designing prominent Canberra spaces such as City Walk, universities in China and Kuching Waterfront in Malaysia. Bill and Darrel’s philosophy considers how a design might discover a the urban pulse and heritage of a city, reveal its urban character, and recognise …

In a new Q&A series with Australia’s pre-eminent designers for the public domain, StreetChat interviews Benjamin Driver of Hill Thalis. Tell us about yourself. What are some of your interests? I’m a Sydney boy, born and bred. I’ve always had a connection to both the natural and man-made world – textures, leaves, stones, trees, as well as creatures. I’m an avid gardener and will always find myself at home outside collecting, observing and absorbing how things function. Although I have a Masters degree in Architecture, I most often describe myself to people as being an ‘urbanist’ – having a keen interest in how cities grow, function and provide for us all. From the macro set-out and alignments of city structure to the quality and pattern of the paving on a …