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Fight trends – and ‘real estate thinking': Anthony Burke's tips for home builders

Sydney Morning Herald

an hour ago

Sydney Morning Herald

Fight trends – and ‘real estate thinking': Anthony Burke's tips for home builders

'We shape our buildings: and afterwards our buildings shape us.' – Winston Churchill Anthony Burke wants us to believe that sharing a bathroom makes for a happier life. 'We think we need a toilet next to every room,' he says brightly. 'But actually, if our goal is to have a happy family life, then another bathroom is not going to get us there.' I live in a one-bathroom house, and I profoundly disagree with this statement: I think everyone in my family would fight a bear for a second loo. But Burke – erudite career academic, encouraging host of Grand Designs Australia (et al), ebullient wearer of unstructured jackets and Japanese sneakers – has had a lot of practice at trying to educate us about the architectural facts of life. We are sitting in a cafe in Redfern's Central Park precinct. This is both random – we hustled in here because it's raining – and deliberate: it's just across the road from Burke's employer, UTS, where he is a professor of architecture; it's on the other side of the square from a house he loves, William Smart's Indigo Slam (philanthropist Judith Neilson's home); and we're only a block from the ABC, where Burke is the unassuming but popular host of not only Restoration Australia (which he has hosted since 2021), Grand Designs Australia and Grand Designs Transformations (2024) but also the new Culture By Design. His bathroom belief, however, transcends all context. 'Research shows us that a family that shares a bathroom actually has a much better social dynamic,' he says, leaning forward. 'You're negotiating with each other every morning for who's in the loo, who's having the first shower, 'You left the sink in a mess'. You're talking to each other, you're having everyday interactions, and there's a virtue to that.' He raises his hands, grinning. 'It doesn't sound very appealing to a lot of people, I understand.' Correct. But maybe he's right. Because Burke's job, after all, is to answer the eternal – and perhaps the central – question of architecture. The question that affects us all, whether we live in gigantic mansions or one-room studios. How do we create buildings that we love, and which make us feel happier in the world? 'Even a brick wants to be something.' – Louis Kahn In 2005, Australian writer Geraldine Brooks described the construction of the great concrete ribs of the Sydney Opera House, designed by Swedish architect JØrn Utzon. When these ribs came out of their wooden formwork, she wrote, quoting Australian architect Peter Myers, 'the concrete was perfect, the edges were pure, there wasn't a blemish'. Myers turned and found 'tears running down Utzon's face. And then I saw that the tough Italian workers were crying, too.' This is a touching story: a weeping Swede, many weeping Italians. But note: no weeping Aussies. And herein lies a paradox about Australians and our built environment. On the one hand, says Burke, we're very sensitive to architecture, and surprisingly knowledgeable about it. On the other, we're deeply reluctant to admit to this sensitivity – as he puts it succinctly – 'in case people think we're wankers'. 'We are now quite comfortable to talk about things like tiles, finishes, open-plan, these kinds of concepts,' he explains. 'And we understand, viscerally, that some environments literally change your physiology. When I was a kid, I loved that sense of release as you arrive at the beach. Your heart rate changes, your metabolism slows down, you get in sync with a very different kind of rhythm. It's the same when walking in the bush. We lived across the road from Ku-ring-gai [National Park], and when I'd go walking, I'd get that same feeling. Most Australians know that feeling: I think we're subconsciously very aware of our natural world: where the sun is, where the wind's blowing, how we feel out of doors.' We know, in other words, that natural physical spaces and surroundings have the power to change our mood. The difficulty comes in admitting that man-made ones do, too. 'A Swedish person is happy to talk about a beautifully designed chair,' explains Burke, who spent a university semester at KTH, a highly respected architectural school in Stockholm. 'They'll know exactly where it came from: 'That's actually a Finnish design – Alvar Aalto did that in the 1940s – isn't it great?' And you're like, 'Right, and you're an accountant. Great. Keep talking to me about the design culture of your country.' We don't have that here. We get it, but we don't want to admit it because it's a bit fluffy. If you start talking about the way the light falls on stone, you might be a bit of a wanker.' Burke laughs. 'Architects are, perhaps rightly, made fun of for that.' Burke wonders if our suspicion of beauty in architecture comes from our history. In terms of European building in Australia, 'we were the ultimate pragmatists. We were using whatever was available, we didn't have lofty ideas or much money. There was a deep sense of pragmatism. And we have not lost that – I think in terms of design culture, we are still deeply pragmatic in our assessment of form. But that's also meant we're dismissive, or cynical, about a cultural conversation. We're like, 'Why would we talk about beauty; why would we talk about an elegant solution? If something's going to work, and it's going to cost me the least amount of money, let's do that.' ' This, surely, is the most tragic thing an architect could hear: like a passionate chef hearing someone say, 'Who cares what it tastes like? If it's nutritious, and it's cheap, let's eat that.' But Burke is undeterred. 'I do think the conversation is changing,' he says, grinning. 'I really do.' 'The mission of an architect is to help people understand how to make life more beautiful, the world a better one for living in, and to give reason, rhyme, and meaning to life.' – Frank Lloyd Wright When Anthony Burke was a kid, there were no profound design conversations happening in his house. This was no bad thing – it sounds like a happy Sydney suburban childhood, full of surfing, sun-damage, hanging out with his mates. His family lived in Forestville, Collaroy, Clareville – suburbs full of natural beauty – but the man-made environment of the Northern Beaches didn't exactly fill him with wonder. Still, some pleasure in design must have struck early. He dearly loved drawing and doodling – highly technical little creations like the 'tickle machine' plan he produced, aged 7. 'I can remember it clearly, which is very weird,' he says. 'I think that enjoyment translated into a fascination with technical drawing, drafting; I found it therapeutic, or meditative, or something.' When he was 15, he went on a trip with his art class to Italy. It was his first trip to Europe, and for Burke, walking into the Sistine Chapel was like plunging into the ocean at north Avalon. 'You walk into those spaces and they work on you. You feel the space with every sense. Not just your eyes and not just your head: you feel it in your skin.' He pauses. 'I mean, I was in year 10, so I'm not having deep thoughts about that. I'm probably thinking, 'Where can I sneak a beer on my fake ID?' But at the same time, you're noticing that there is so much depth and feeling happening around you, in the walls of the building. The temperature, the humidity, the sounds: those buildings work on you on every level – that's why they're so damn impressive.' Despite deciding to be an architect 'pretty much as soon as I decided I didn't want to be a fireman', he didn't make it into architecture straight out of school. 'I think that was maybe a bit of a humbling moment,' recalls his wife, marketing director Kylie Moss, whom Burke met when he was 20 and they were both working at that well-known cradle of aesthetic talent, the Harbord Diggers. 'It just fired up his passion even more.' He got the marks to transfer from arts at the University of Sydney to architecture at UNSW after first year. Once there, he excelled. Professor Desley Luscombe, the future Dean of Architecture at UTS, remembers him as part of 'an unusually enthusiastic, capable group – and even in that cohort, he was one of the very top achievers'. 'Ant was always delighted by ideas,' recalls close friend, Annie Tennant, now Director, Design and Place at NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment. 'A big group of us met at uni – we're still friends now – and he was the guy from the Northern Beaches with a thick, blond ponytail who wore a lot of denim and white. And then in fifth year, when the course got into all this conceptual stuff, his fashion changed, and he started wearing a lot of black and talking about Derrida. We were all a bit like, 'Dude, how long is this going to last?' But he genuinely loved the ideas, loved the deep theory. And to be fair, he never went full skivvy. He was too grounded, too funny and nice.' Skivvy or not, Burke's plan was certainly to become a practising architect. But according to Moss, he revelled in 'the force for change that university can be: learning from people who were equally passionate; meeting all sorts of opinions, talking about ideas. It really brought out an intellectual hunger.' A gap year in Hong Kong, hearing professional architects discuss concepts he'd never heard of; a semester in Sweden 'immersed in beautiful Scandinavian modernism, so elegant and civilised' all fed what Moss calls 'this real inquisitive drive. He wants to understand people and environments, as well as buildings.' After graduating, Burke worked as an architect with Philip Cox (now Cox Architecture). Going on site, he recalls, was 'so great, and so scary. The builders are saying, 'I'm not building this stupid f---ing house,' and you're just out of uni, and you have to say, 'Um, OK … but that looks wrong to me, can we check the plans again?' ' But when he was only 27, his father died suddenly of cancer – just three months between diagnosis and death – and Burke decided to do something dramatic. 'Dad left my [younger] brother and me about $80,000 each,' he explains, 'and I thought, 'Right, well that's enough for a degree overseas.' I'd been thinking for a while that I wanted to go and get the highest level of architectural conversation I could find.' Loading This turned out to be at Columbia University in New York, where Burke earned himself a master's degree, tutored, and worked as a teacher's assistant to Pritzker Prize-winning architect Shigeru Ban. In 2001, he and Moss returned to Sydney and married. But the 3300 hours he needed to log to apply for his full registration (and actually call himself an architect) were destined to remain out of reach; almost immediately, he was invited to apply for a teaching role back in the US, at one of the country's top-tier universities, Berkeley, in California. 'It was a tenure-track position, so it had a kind of esteem to it,' he recalls. 'And I was completely blindsided by the fact that I got it.' During the five years they spent in California, he and Kylie had a son and daughter, now young adults. In 2007, Luscombe – by then Dean of Architecture at UTS – lured him back to Australia again. In the almost two decades since, Burke has had two stints as head of School of Architecture at UTS (2010-17). He's been co-creative director of the Australian Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale, and architectural judge for London Design Week. He's written books, chaired excellence committees, founded design competitions and taken everyone from first-year uni students to retirees on overseas architecture tours. (He likes both groups, though he admits his mature audience members 'actually stay in the room when I'm talking'.) In the past 20 years, however, he has not designed a single building. Does he regret this? 'Well, I don't feel like I'm done yet,' he says. 'I often think that the next chapter for me might involve going back to that. And when we did our own place a couple of years ago – a really tiny place, very modest – I totally loved it. So, maybe. But I have to admit, it feels natural to be where I am.' '98 per cent of what gets built today is shit.' – Frank Gehry Anthony Burke, perhaps unlike Frank Gehry, is an optimist. He is, according to Grand Designs Australia producer Brooke Bayvel, 'utterly untarnished by cynicism'. When he turned up to audition for Restoration Australia, back in 2019, 'he really stood out. Not for what he brought on camera, but off: he was just very interested in everybody. Interested, open, kind.' This, of course – along with optimism – is exactly what's required on Grand Designs: an endless sympathetic engagement with ordinary people and their architectural dramas. Will the council allow the solar panels on the front side of the cottage roof? Will the horse-poo render really stick to the walls? Is the cantilevered platform actually going to solve the family's space issues, or will it plunge them all to the bottom of the picturesque valley? Burke, says Bayvel, can ask these questions, and nobody takes offence. 'All the people on the show love him. They'll tell him anything!' Audiences clearly feel the same: the ABC requested him across its full suite of architecture shows, Bayvel explains, which means Thursday night on the national broadcaster is now something akin to The Anthony Burke Evening. (Even Burke's genial charm, however, may not be enough to enliven the new program, Culture By Design – an extremely cerebral investigation of Asian design without a single concreting calamity or rain delay, made for the ABC's Asian audiences. As Burke says ruefully: 'I do wonder if Australian audiences are going to be watching, saying, 'Hang on, what's going on? Is she pregnant? Did they say: in by Christmas?' ') After half a decade working together, Bayvel concludes that Burke's reputation for niceness remains untarnished. 'These shows are bloody hard work – there are about 70 houses in progress across all three – but I've never heard him utter a cross word to anyone. I've never heard even a little tone. But also, you'd underestimate him at your peril because he's super smart.' His intellectual heft, indeed, has brought an unexpected boost to the programs, even among a group they weren't initially intended for – architects themselves. 'I think him stepping into that role has really elevated it,' says Adam Haddow, president of the Australian Institute of Architects. 'People [in the profession] have such a high level of respect for him.' He can do two things architects appreciate, Haddow goes on. 'He can translate. Architects are renowned for talking architecture talk, and often we don't even know we're talking it. But Anthony can understand challenging and complex issues, and translate them into everyday language, and get the general public involved.' Secondly, 'I think he lives in a really interesting space where he is able to be critical. It can be quite difficult, [from inside] the profession, to ever suggest things could be different, either in a particular building, or industry-wide. But he can be critical, and people listen to him.' This twin appeal, to general viewers and specialists, also gives Burke a chance to steer the broader design conversation in Australia towards the issues he thinks are important: sustainability, alternatives to traditional building techniques and materials, and new ways of visualising how families might live. That's why he does TV, he says: 'the chance to help nudge the conversation gently towards what we should be doing'. The fact is, he says, 'the current housing model in this country is broken – financially, socially, health-wise, sustainably. There are about 10.9 million houses in Australia and on average, about a million are empty every night. And we have the biggest houses in the world, along with America. That's just not going to keep working for us as a model. We need to face up to the fact that life for our kids in a home in Australia is not going to look like the last 70 years – three bedrooms, two bathrooms, carport, flamingo on the front lawn. I think our job right now [as architects] is to help people imagine something different. Whether it's higher-density, or multi-generational, or granny flats, single-room occupancies on existing medium-density suburbs, whatever. And we need to be enabling those things – finding the advantages and interest and beauty in all those options – rather than fighting them.' Central Park, the old Carlton United brewery site on Sydney CBD's southern edge, contains an Edwardian factory building, a Jean Nouvel tower block, and two buildings by three Australian architecture practices – the Phoenix gallery, by Durbach Block Jaggers and John Wardle Architects, and the dramatic domestic residence, Indigo Slam, by Smart Design Studio. Indigo Slam, you could argue, is domestic only insofar as the Doge's palace in Venice, say, is domestic – when it eventually stops raining, we head for the home William Smart designed for Judith Neilson. Australian 'resi' is a topic Burke is always discussing overseas, he confesses as we walk. 'I don't think the rest of the world knows enough about what's going on here: hand on heart, I think we're doing some of the best work in the world.' With its sweeps and stretches of milky concrete, Indigo Slam is like something designed by Zeus – Olympian, slightly unsettling, apparently disconnected from the world of mere mortals. But no, says Burke, pointing out the water rill running alongside the footpath, the generous front gate. 'Gorgeous,' he says, peering through the rails. 'And look at the bricks behind, the different texture of the slate here, the granite here. There's just so much thoughtful loveliness. What you see when you walk past is that someone has designed it. Someone has thought about all these little things.' And this, it transpires, is what Anthony Burke wants us to remember when it comes to our own houses. Thoughtfulness is not simply the province of those with unlimited means, after all – in fact, it costs absolutely nothing. 'So,' he says, 'if you are faced with the opportunity – which is a massive opportunity – to build your own home, start from the fundamentals. Really interrogate your family, and the way you live.' Whatever else you do, don't fall prey to fashion. 'Do not go to the cover of Vogue Living and say, 'Right. I want that living room,' ' he pleads. 'Your home should not end up being some kind of tasteful catalogue of the season's best. Oh my god, I hate that stuff! The latest stove from Europe or tile from Italy: these things are ephemeral nonsense.' As well as steering clear of fashion, he goes on, we must at all costs avoid 'real estate thinking'. 'We've developed this idea, because of the way real estate operates in this country, that there is only one version of how a house can look,' he says, looking genuinely pained. ' 'Because that's what the market wants.' But what everybody doesn't talk about is that what the market wants is exactly the most mediocre, middle-ground, vanilla idea of a life. That's not a life: it's just a vision of a product. We think, 'Everyone else will want this; when I'm sick of it, someone else will want to buy it.' But what about what we want?' Loading What we should do instead, if we get the chance, is have faith in the power of 'doing the fundamentals better and better and better. We don't need more than that. And that means focusing on things like the way our family is healthy in a home – clean air, no mould, natural light, no VOCs [volatile organic compounds]; the scale of the home being just right for the people living in it; the fact that light is always coming from the north in Australia; that we always have a need for elbow room, but also closeness with the people we love.' And so we finish as we began – with toilets. I know, from a cunning confidential source, that when Burke renovated his own home in Sydney's inner west, he installed only one full bathroom, and one powder room (ie. a loo with no shower). This seems incredibly disciplined, but Burke doesn't hold everybody to such rigorous standards. 'There is definitely a Goldilocks scale,' he concludes. 'And it's not the same for everybody. So I am not advocating a particular number of toilets. But I am saying that things are going to change in the next 20 years, even if we don't want them to, and we have to decide whether we're on board or we're off board.' He spreads his hands wide, taking in toilets everywhere. 'So let's get on board!'

The Age

an hour ago

The Age

Fight trends – and ‘real estate thinking': Anthony Burke's tips for home builders

'We shape our buildings: and afterwards our buildings shape us.' – Winston Churchill Anthony Burke wants us to believe that sharing a bathroom makes for a happier life. 'We think we need a toilet next to every room,' he says brightly. 'But actually, if our goal is to have a happy family life, then another bathroom is not going to get us there.' I live in a one-bathroom house, and I profoundly disagree with this statement: I think everyone in my family would fight a bear for a second loo. But Burke – erudite career academic, encouraging host of Grand Designs Australia (et al), ebullient wearer of unstructured jackets and Japanese sneakers – has had a lot of practice at trying to educate us about the architectural facts of life. We are sitting in a cafe in Redfern's Central Park precinct. This is both random – we hustled in here because it's raining – and deliberate: it's just across the road from Burke's employer, UTS, where he is a professor of architecture; it's on the other side of the square from a house he loves, William Smart's Indigo Slam (philanthropist Judith Neilson's home); and we're only a block from the ABC, where Burke is the unassuming but popular host of not only Restoration Australia (which he has hosted since 2021), Grand Designs Australia and Grand Designs Transformations (2024) but also the new Culture By Design. His bathroom belief, however, transcends all context. 'Research shows us that a family that shares a bathroom actually has a much better social dynamic,' he says, leaning forward. 'You're negotiating with each other every morning for who's in the loo, who's having the first shower, 'You left the sink in a mess'. You're talking to each other, you're having everyday interactions, and there's a virtue to that.' He raises his hands, grinning. 'It doesn't sound very appealing to a lot of people, I understand.' Correct. But maybe he's right. Because Burke's job, after all, is to answer the eternal – and perhaps the central – question of architecture. The question that affects us all, whether we live in gigantic mansions or one-room studios. How do we create buildings that we love, and which make us feel happier in the world? 'Even a brick wants to be something.' – Louis Kahn In 2005, Australian writer Geraldine Brooks described the construction of the great concrete ribs of the Sydney Opera House, designed by Swedish architect JØrn Utzon. When these ribs came out of their wooden formwork, she wrote, quoting Australian architect Peter Myers, 'the concrete was perfect, the edges were pure, there wasn't a blemish'. Myers turned and found 'tears running down Utzon's face. And then I saw that the tough Italian workers were crying, too.' This is a touching story: a weeping Swede, many weeping Italians. But note: no weeping Aussies. And herein lies a paradox about Australians and our built environment. On the one hand, says Burke, we're very sensitive to architecture, and surprisingly knowledgeable about it. On the other, we're deeply reluctant to admit to this sensitivity – as he puts it succinctly – 'in case people think we're wankers'. 'We are now quite comfortable to talk about things like tiles, finishes, open-plan, these kinds of concepts,' he explains. 'And we understand, viscerally, that some environments literally change your physiology. When I was a kid, I loved that sense of release as you arrive at the beach. Your heart rate changes, your metabolism slows down, you get in sync with a very different kind of rhythm. It's the same when walking in the bush. We lived across the road from Ku-ring-gai [National Park], and when I'd go walking, I'd get that same feeling. Most Australians know that feeling: I think we're subconsciously very aware of our natural world: where the sun is, where the wind's blowing, how we feel out of doors.' We know, in other words, that natural physical spaces and surroundings have the power to change our mood. The difficulty comes in admitting that man-made ones do, too. 'A Swedish person is happy to talk about a beautifully designed chair,' explains Burke, who spent a university semester at KTH, a highly respected architectural school in Stockholm. 'They'll know exactly where it came from: 'That's actually a Finnish design – Alvar Aalto did that in the 1940s – isn't it great?' And you're like, 'Right, and you're an accountant. Great. Keep talking to me about the design culture of your country.' We don't have that here. We get it, but we don't want to admit it because it's a bit fluffy. If you start talking about the way the light falls on stone, you might be a bit of a wanker.' Burke laughs. 'Architects are, perhaps rightly, made fun of for that.' Burke wonders if our suspicion of beauty in architecture comes from our history. In terms of European building in Australia, 'we were the ultimate pragmatists. We were using whatever was available, we didn't have lofty ideas or much money. There was a deep sense of pragmatism. And we have not lost that – I think in terms of design culture, we are still deeply pragmatic in our assessment of form. But that's also meant we're dismissive, or cynical, about a cultural conversation. We're like, 'Why would we talk about beauty; why would we talk about an elegant solution? If something's going to work, and it's going to cost me the least amount of money, let's do that.' ' This, surely, is the most tragic thing an architect could hear: like a passionate chef hearing someone say, 'Who cares what it tastes like? If it's nutritious, and it's cheap, let's eat that.' But Burke is undeterred. 'I do think the conversation is changing,' he says, grinning. 'I really do.' 'The mission of an architect is to help people understand how to make life more beautiful, the world a better one for living in, and to give reason, rhyme, and meaning to life.' – Frank Lloyd Wright When Anthony Burke was a kid, there were no profound design conversations happening in his house. This was no bad thing – it sounds like a happy Sydney suburban childhood, full of surfing, sun-damage, hanging out with his mates. His family lived in Forestville, Collaroy, Clareville – suburbs full of natural beauty – but the man-made environment of the Northern Beaches didn't exactly fill him with wonder. Still, some pleasure in design must have struck early. He dearly loved drawing and doodling – highly technical little creations like the 'tickle machine' plan he produced, aged 7. 'I can remember it clearly, which is very weird,' he says. 'I think that enjoyment translated into a fascination with technical drawing, drafting; I found it therapeutic, or meditative, or something.' When he was 15, he went on a trip with his art class to Italy. It was his first trip to Europe, and for Burke, walking into the Sistine Chapel was like plunging into the ocean at north Avalon. 'You walk into those spaces and they work on you. You feel the space with every sense. Not just your eyes and not just your head: you feel it in your skin.' He pauses. 'I mean, I was in year 10, so I'm not having deep thoughts about that. I'm probably thinking, 'Where can I sneak a beer on my fake ID?' But at the same time, you're noticing that there is so much depth and feeling happening around you, in the walls of the building. The temperature, the humidity, the sounds: those buildings work on you on every level – that's why they're so damn impressive.' Despite deciding to be an architect 'pretty much as soon as I decided I didn't want to be a fireman', he didn't make it into architecture straight out of school. 'I think that was maybe a bit of a humbling moment,' recalls his wife, marketing director Kylie Moss, whom Burke met when he was 20 and they were both working at that well-known cradle of aesthetic talent, the Harbord Diggers. 'It just fired up his passion even more.' He got the marks to transfer from arts at the University of Sydney to architecture at UNSW after first year. Once there, he excelled. Professor Desley Luscombe, the future Dean of Architecture at UTS, remembers him as part of 'an unusually enthusiastic, capable group – and even in that cohort, he was one of the very top achievers'. 'Ant was always delighted by ideas,' recalls close friend, Annie Tennant, now Director, Design and Place at NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment. 'A big group of us met at uni – we're still friends now – and he was the guy from the Northern Beaches with a thick, blond ponytail who wore a lot of denim and white. And then in fifth year, when the course got into all this conceptual stuff, his fashion changed, and he started wearing a lot of black and talking about Derrida. We were all a bit like, 'Dude, how long is this going to last?' But he genuinely loved the ideas, loved the deep theory. And to be fair, he never went full skivvy. He was too grounded, too funny and nice.' Skivvy or not, Burke's plan was certainly to become a practising architect. But according to Moss, he revelled in 'the force for change that university can be: learning from people who were equally passionate; meeting all sorts of opinions, talking about ideas. It really brought out an intellectual hunger.' A gap year in Hong Kong, hearing professional architects discuss concepts he'd never heard of; a semester in Sweden 'immersed in beautiful Scandinavian modernism, so elegant and civilised' all fed what Moss calls 'this real inquisitive drive. He wants to understand people and environments, as well as buildings.' After graduating, Burke worked as an architect with Philip Cox (now Cox Architecture). Going on site, he recalls, was 'so great, and so scary. The builders are saying, 'I'm not building this stupid f---ing house,' and you're just out of uni, and you have to say, 'Um, OK … but that looks wrong to me, can we check the plans again?' ' But when he was only 27, his father died suddenly of cancer – just three months between diagnosis and death – and Burke decided to do something dramatic. 'Dad left my [younger] brother and me about $80,000 each,' he explains, 'and I thought, 'Right, well that's enough for a degree overseas.' I'd been thinking for a while that I wanted to go and get the highest level of architectural conversation I could find.' Loading This turned out to be at Columbia University in New York, where Burke earned himself a master's degree, tutored, and worked as a teacher's assistant to Pritzker Prize-winning architect Shigeru Ban. In 2001, he and Moss returned to Sydney and married. But the 3300 hours he needed to log to apply for his full registration (and actually call himself an architect) were destined to remain out of reach; almost immediately, he was invited to apply for a teaching role back in the US, at one of the country's top-tier universities, Berkeley, in California. 'It was a tenure-track position, so it had a kind of esteem to it,' he recalls. 'And I was completely blindsided by the fact that I got it.' During the five years they spent in California, he and Kylie had a son and daughter, now young adults. In 2007, Luscombe – by then Dean of Architecture at UTS – lured him back to Australia again. In the almost two decades since, Burke has had two stints as head of School of Architecture at UTS (2010-17). He's been co-creative director of the Australian Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale, and architectural judge for London Design Week. He's written books, chaired excellence committees, founded design competitions and taken everyone from first-year uni students to retirees on overseas architecture tours. (He likes both groups, though he admits his mature audience members 'actually stay in the room when I'm talking'.) In the past 20 years, however, he has not designed a single building. Does he regret this? 'Well, I don't feel like I'm done yet,' he says. 'I often think that the next chapter for me might involve going back to that. And when we did our own place a couple of years ago – a really tiny place, very modest – I totally loved it. So, maybe. But I have to admit, it feels natural to be where I am.' '98 per cent of what gets built today is shit.' – Frank Gehry Anthony Burke, perhaps unlike Frank Gehry, is an optimist. He is, according to Grand Designs Australia producer Brooke Bayvel, 'utterly untarnished by cynicism'. When he turned up to audition for Restoration Australia, back in 2019, 'he really stood out. Not for what he brought on camera, but off: he was just very interested in everybody. Interested, open, kind.' This, of course – along with optimism – is exactly what's required on Grand Designs: an endless sympathetic engagement with ordinary people and their architectural dramas. Will the council allow the solar panels on the front side of the cottage roof? Will the horse-poo render really stick to the walls? Is the cantilevered platform actually going to solve the family's space issues, or will it plunge them all to the bottom of the picturesque valley? Burke, says Bayvel, can ask these questions, and nobody takes offence. 'All the people on the show love him. They'll tell him anything!' Audiences clearly feel the same: the ABC requested him across its full suite of architecture shows, Bayvel explains, which means Thursday night on the national broadcaster is now something akin to The Anthony Burke Evening. (Even Burke's genial charm, however, may not be enough to enliven the new program, Culture By Design – an extremely cerebral investigation of Asian design without a single concreting calamity or rain delay, made for the ABC's Asian audiences. As Burke says ruefully: 'I do wonder if Australian audiences are going to be watching, saying, 'Hang on, what's going on? Is she pregnant? Did they say: in by Christmas?' ') After half a decade working together, Bayvel concludes that Burke's reputation for niceness remains untarnished. 'These shows are bloody hard work – there are about 70 houses in progress across all three – but I've never heard him utter a cross word to anyone. I've never heard even a little tone. But also, you'd underestimate him at your peril because he's super smart.' His intellectual heft, indeed, has brought an unexpected boost to the programs, even among a group they weren't initially intended for – architects themselves. 'I think him stepping into that role has really elevated it,' says Adam Haddow, president of the Australian Institute of Architects. 'People [in the profession] have such a high level of respect for him.' He can do two things architects appreciate, Haddow goes on. 'He can translate. Architects are renowned for talking architecture talk, and often we don't even know we're talking it. But Anthony can understand challenging and complex issues, and translate them into everyday language, and get the general public involved.' Secondly, 'I think he lives in a really interesting space where he is able to be critical. It can be quite difficult, [from inside] the profession, to ever suggest things could be different, either in a particular building, or industry-wide. But he can be critical, and people listen to him.' This twin appeal, to general viewers and specialists, also gives Burke a chance to steer the broader design conversation in Australia towards the issues he thinks are important: sustainability, alternatives to traditional building techniques and materials, and new ways of visualising how families might live. That's why he does TV, he says: 'the chance to help nudge the conversation gently towards what we should be doing'. The fact is, he says, 'the current housing model in this country is broken – financially, socially, health-wise, sustainably. There are about 10.9 million houses in Australia and on average, about a million are empty every night. And we have the biggest houses in the world, along with America. That's just not going to keep working for us as a model. We need to face up to the fact that life for our kids in a home in Australia is not going to look like the last 70 years – three bedrooms, two bathrooms, carport, flamingo on the front lawn. I think our job right now [as architects] is to help people imagine something different. Whether it's higher-density, or multi-generational, or granny flats, single-room occupancies on existing medium-density suburbs, whatever. And we need to be enabling those things – finding the advantages and interest and beauty in all those options – rather than fighting them.' Central Park, the old Carlton United brewery site on Sydney CBD's southern edge, contains an Edwardian factory building, a Jean Nouvel tower block, and two buildings by three Australian architecture practices – the Phoenix gallery, by Durbach Block Jaggers and John Wardle Architects, and the dramatic domestic residence, Indigo Slam, by Smart Design Studio. Indigo Slam, you could argue, is domestic only insofar as the Doge's palace in Venice, say, is domestic – when it eventually stops raining, we head for the home William Smart designed for Judith Neilson. Australian 'resi' is a topic Burke is always discussing overseas, he confesses as we walk. 'I don't think the rest of the world knows enough about what's going on here: hand on heart, I think we're doing some of the best work in the world.' With its sweeps and stretches of milky concrete, Indigo Slam is like something designed by Zeus – Olympian, slightly unsettling, apparently disconnected from the world of mere mortals. But no, says Burke, pointing out the water rill running alongside the footpath, the generous front gate. 'Gorgeous,' he says, peering through the rails. 'And look at the bricks behind, the different texture of the slate here, the granite here. There's just so much thoughtful loveliness. What you see when you walk past is that someone has designed it. Someone has thought about all these little things.' And this, it transpires, is what Anthony Burke wants us to remember when it comes to our own houses. Thoughtfulness is not simply the province of those with unlimited means, after all – in fact, it costs absolutely nothing. 'So,' he says, 'if you are faced with the opportunity – which is a massive opportunity – to build your own home, start from the fundamentals. Really interrogate your family, and the way you live.' Whatever else you do, don't fall prey to fashion. 'Do not go to the cover of Vogue Living and say, 'Right. I want that living room,' ' he pleads. 'Your home should not end up being some kind of tasteful catalogue of the season's best. Oh my god, I hate that stuff! The latest stove from Europe or tile from Italy: these things are ephemeral nonsense.' As well as steering clear of fashion, he goes on, we must at all costs avoid 'real estate thinking'. 'We've developed this idea, because of the way real estate operates in this country, that there is only one version of how a house can look,' he says, looking genuinely pained. ' 'Because that's what the market wants.' But what everybody doesn't talk about is that what the market wants is exactly the most mediocre, middle-ground, vanilla idea of a life. That's not a life: it's just a vision of a product. We think, 'Everyone else will want this; when I'm sick of it, someone else will want to buy it.' But what about what we want?' Loading What we should do instead, if we get the chance, is have faith in the power of 'doing the fundamentals better and better and better. We don't need more than that. And that means focusing on things like the way our family is healthy in a home – clean air, no mould, natural light, no VOCs [volatile organic compounds]; the scale of the home being just right for the people living in it; the fact that light is always coming from the north in Australia; that we always have a need for elbow room, but also closeness with the people we love.' And so we finish as we began – with toilets. I know, from a cunning confidential source, that when Burke renovated his own home in Sydney's inner west, he installed only one full bathroom, and one powder room (ie. a loo with no shower). This seems incredibly disciplined, but Burke doesn't hold everybody to such rigorous standards. 'There is definitely a Goldilocks scale,' he concludes. 'And it's not the same for everybody. So I am not advocating a particular number of toilets. But I am saying that things are going to change in the next 20 years, even if we don't want them to, and we have to decide whether we're on board or we're off board.' He spreads his hands wide, taking in toilets everywhere. 'So let's get on board!'

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