Robert Morris-Nunn MORRIS-NUNN ASSOCIATES



Robert Morris-Nunn0

Robert Morris-Nunn1

Robert Morris-Nunn
Morris-Nunn Associates

IXL Atrium 27 Hunter Street
Hobart, Tasmania 7000

www.morrisnunn.com.au

 Robert Morris-Nunn has practised in Tasmania for over 25 years, taking a special interest in the social impact of architecture. Morris-Nunn Associates recently gained critical acclaim both here and in the US and Europe for the redevelopment of the IXL warehouses on Hobart's docks (2004), and the Forest ecoCentre in Scottsdale (2003). Both designs used an ingenious encasing structure to direct air flows and moderate the thermal environment of their interiors. Robert has won numerous state and several national architectural awards; his work has been illustrated in international publications such as Architectural Review; and he has been invited to lecture at many Australian and international conferences about his work.

What future or futures do you foresee for the built world?
I am a somewhat naïve optimist, so I hope a more responsible built environment happens before it is too late.

What is your greatest fear?
Ongoing complacency over environmental issues.

What is your greatest extravagance?
Books are something which I can never go without.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Learning to tell stories through architecture.

What are your favourite buildings?
Any building where there is both humanity and passion.

The greatest hero from the history of architecture?
I prefer the humble people, so no heroes.

The dastardly villain?
All the architects who have sold out to greed.

 

The most inspirational advance in your lifetime?
A practical understanding of ecology and how the built environment can actively contribute to it.

What green building excites you the most?
CH2 in Melbourne, where the degree of innovation is truly magnificent.

What is your most treasured possession?
A phial of Norwegian Heavy Water, manufactured just prior to World War Two, a talisman for my own story making.

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
An ongoing socially rewarding series of design challenges, with no politics attached.

City or country?
I am an urban animal.

Best vista?
Any view which I can look at without thinking that I have to actively respond in a design idea!

Worst blight?
Unfortunately, most contemporary urban environments.

Who or what was your mentor?
Glen Murcutt and Richard le Plastrier, both of whom taught at Sydney Uni when I was there as a student.

Strangest architectural experience?
Having to explain to a group of Japanese aged care experts the cultural value of a Derwent Valley hop pickers’ hut as a way of creating contentment in a nursing home I designed.

In my youth ...
I almost died, and it taught me to value people from all walks of life.

What quality can Australian architects export to the world?
A real belief that one can really do innovative things, a sense of sunny optimism.

What qualities do you owe to Tasmania?
An understanding of cultural history.

If you could choose what to come back as, what would it be?
A book worm.