1980 - 1989

Alexandria Library Competition, Egypt.

THE EIGHTIES
A heady period that Stylistically started with Learning from Las Vegas ,Delirious New York and The Language of Post Modern Architecture, moved quickly to end with the Architecture and Design conference held at the Tate titled "Deconstruction". It was the decade of Post Modernism, flares and MTV
Politics spanned from Thatcherism to Perestroika and the demolition of the Berlin Wall. Financially the stock exchange and the Banks were deregulated only to crash on two major occasions with Black Monday and Black Friday which would set the mood for the 90's
We saw a new wave of architects like OMA, Zaha Hadid, Steven Holl, Morphosis, Jean Nouvell and the like.
In London it was the period of the style wars of Rogers, Foster, Stirling and Farrell.

In Canberra I was the treasurer of the architects student group "SEDITION" and the student representative to the Local Chapter of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects "RAIA and I was the National student representative on the jury for the First RAIA Student Biennale. I took student life seriously and worked in the "Next Wave" Nation student conference in Canberra. During this period as an undergraduate, I worked for Bryan Dowling, Department of Construction National Division, Cameron Chisholm and Nicol, Cox and Mitchel Guirgola and Thorpe. I was to leave Canberra immediately after submitting my Thesis. After a brief stop in Scandinavia I searched for work in London and I was offered a number of positions but accepted a job with Lehner Reid, in Sevenoaks, Kent. Living in Kent proved difficult as I was commuting from London or staying in a B&B. I loved the work but the situation was untenable, so I rang around the previous interviews and settled on Farrell, which was and still is an important part of my education. At the end of 1989 the family returned to Australia, I travelled through America to Melbourne as it seemed to be the most liberal thinking city in Australia and with architectural attitude to go with it.