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other architectsThe fact that the site navigation begins with “Interests” rather than the more typical “About” or “Projects” is somewhat telling – as are the stated interests themselves:
- background, not foreground
- Frames, not objects
- incomplete and open-ended
- Loose rather than prescriptive
- common, not proprietary
These are not empty nicknames, either. These interests are carefully intertwined through a series of equally diverse activities.
For example, Grace Mortlock is not only a founding partner of Other, she also serves as a senior design consultant to the New South Wales Government Architect, assisting with the development of strategic projects across the state. Mortlock says this “upstream” in-house design-led coordination has provided a different advantage and “broadened my understanding of what’s going on in NSW.” This is the wide-angle lens of a macroscopic microscope, not a small clinic microscope.
Meanwhile, co-founder David Neustein is a prolific and influential writer who regularly elevates, amplifies, and nourishes the public discourse around urbanization within this domestic economy, if not the broader These discourses are often lost in countries where the culture) is tied to negative gearing rather than positive public value. Both Mortlock and Newstein regularly teach, including most recently at Washington State University and the University of Technology, Sydney. They have also conducted residencies, guest lectures and seminars at the University of Hong Kong, Newcastle University, the Architectural Association of London, the University of Wellington, and Monash University.
Other’s core works include residences, civil architecture and exhibition installations. The size of this practice varies, with team members ranging from three to six, depending on the needs of the project. The third is urban designer and architecture graduate Lindsay Mulligan, with contributions from both Mortlock and Newstein appearing several times in the foreground.
These diverse activities are not side hustle but strategically chosen leverage points that come from viewing the world as a series of open possibilities. The “other” isn’t just about building buildings, “for better or worse,” Neustein said, but “is concerned with whether the work is relevant to the larger ecosystem or whether it adds anything.”
Others are thoughtful and humble about this positioning, often returning to the act of leaving a vacant lot vacant or the power of simply adding potted plants to a space. They describe the many ways they choose to interact with the world as “filling in the gaps”: working in forgotten or invisible realms.
However, this is hardly comparable to Spakfilla’s practice. Rather than simply filling and smoothing, the “other” works in a more exploratory mode, breaking away from the constraints of small practices and creating new spaces for possible futures. This approach seems to be in part a reaction to the self-limiting comfort zones that many practices (consciously or unconsciously) choose to inhabit, which Newstein describes as “waiting for the phone to ring.” In contrast, others view brief creation as part of the design process when possible. Mortlock describes this creative exploration as “finding gaps to get things moving.”
This is not entirely an experiment. Other’s portfolio includes projects reminiscent of traditional Australian small practices, but even here there are traces of an-Other’s approach.
A sensitive addition to a century-old bungalow (named Bungalow) on land at Gundungurra in the New South Wales Southern Highlands reveals the sculptor’s sensitivity in deciding what to leave behind and what to add. While documenting the quiet and lovely Highland House, also in the Southern Highlands, we found a note stating that the previously established gardens “remain more important to the sense of place than any architectural work”.
However, Mortlock and Neustein see more than the obvious value of “making” in these projects. They also realize that the production of built works means designers can be more strategically convincing. The experience gained from the difficulty of “making” enables others to propose a richer variety of ideas: the answer to a complex problem might be a government brief, a competition submission, an existing landscape, a teaching studio , an article in Monthly magazine… maybe just a building. This freedom from the constraints in which most studios find themselves – where the answer to all questions is a new building designed by the studio – offers Others a way to find the most productive path forward in a diverse landscape Methods.
Others’ work with cemeteries illustrates this different operating model. Cemeteries are environments imbued with cultural weight and civic significance, collective and individual memory, complex functional needs, and living ecosystems. Other architects have designed buildings and spaces for clients such as Sydney’s Rookwood General Cemetery and Northern Cemeteries (now amalgamated as Metropolitan Memorial Park), but with the Burial Belt (received Honorable Mention in the 2021 AA Unbuilt Works Awards ) and other speculative designs. Graveyard Belt strategically rethinks the cultural future of death, landscape and agriculture, imagining a continuous forest belt around Western Sydney, developed over time through “planting” natural burial grounds and native vegetation.
Likewise, the generative thinking of Offset House contrasts with the smaller homes built by others, demonstrating how we can inspire public and environmental values from typical privatized Australian suburbs and exploit the universal replicability inherent in stud frame construction. It’s a magic trick of suburban transformation, hidden in plain sight, born of an established interest in the ordinary, incomplete and loosely framed.
These proposals begin to show how detailed knowledge inferred from things-scale work can unleash powerful systemic effects at urban or societal scales. This allows others to avoid the binary opposition of “maker” or “strategist” and fluidly occupy a range of positions, filling the gaps in between.
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