A profile on Chief Architect Neville Kurth

Neville's education in architecture began as a Built Environment Technician and during this early period worked for a design and construct housing company and architectural firms acquiring valuable knowledge in construction techniques and documentation detailing. Following a break in study to acquire additional experience in the field, he returned from working in the UK and continued his studies undertaking the Bachelor of Architecture degree at the Queensland University of Technology. During this period Neville worked at various architectural firms gaining and completing the Degree and graduated with a Bachelor of Architecture.

This depth of experience and broad knowledge base Neville gained has enabled the production of quality living and working environments. His knowledge of design saw him lead the residential section of Guymer Bailey Architects in Brisbane with involvement in all stages of development of small to large residential projects in Australia and overseas.

Neville's design ethos draws from a Critical Regionalist philosophy which defines our culture through the built environment. This evolving framework has become increasingly evident in a variety of projects completed throughout Queensland. Neville wrote his Architecture research paper on critical regionalism after being moved by Gabriel Poole's RAIA 1999 Hook Address where Poole stated that we (architects) have failed our masters when it comes to providing housing for the public. The question remained, why this had occurred and why the profession have not been more active to provide focus on providing responsible design to the market.

A move to Sustainable was born from a frustration as an Architect to get houses constructed with the increasing challenge to satisfy clients briefs and budgets in a market that was continually becoming more difficult. Without an association with builders who don't view well designed buildings as difficult one off houses but a challenge for all in the industry. The move to Sustainable provided the ability to provide a product into the market, promoting a viable alternative to the brick venereal cancer that has engulfed this once beautiful landscape.

Neville's designs promote simplicity as the key, something that can be initially invisible yet have the ability to activate the senses visually, through touch and smell, through the varying use of materials and the juxtaposition of spaces. Houses are primarily where we dwell for shelter, not monuments to ourselves.

"If we don't respect the land on which we dwell, we will continue to be the major force which continues the destruction of our environment. It is our responsibility to remember it is not our right but our privilege to dwell here. Australia is the most urbanised country in the world, with the majority of our landscape where we dwell not being flat yet the market continually cuts, fills, constructs retaining walls in an attempt to force it to be. Project houses predominately are constructed on this mutilated landscape, my question is - if you don't like it the way it is now - why choose to dwell in that place?"