Architecture News Plus (ANP) – Architecture and Design Magazine

Esquisse Design Studio

Profile of Esquisse Design Studio, headquartered in Australia. No project submitted by Esquisse Design Studio has been published on Architecture News Plus (ANP).

: Allan Stevens – © Esquisse Design Studio

Principals

Allan Stevens
Naomi Fry

Brief description

Esquisse Design Studio specialises in masterplanning for legacy developments throughout the world. Our highly skilled team of architects and designers employ a rigorous design process to deliver world-class design with a methodology that integrates comprehensive research, urban planning, architectural and civic place-making expertise.

Allan Stevens and Naomi Fry established Esquisse Design Studio in May 2005. "As a practice, we understand development needs, our first priority is to assist our developer clients in creating a scheme which is commercially viable”. Success flows from there and the practice has made a speciality of creating concepts for complex and valuable waterfront sites that incorporate best urban design practice. "We have made the conscious decision to think big for our clients but to remain a studio of under 50 professionals in order to be responsive and to allow both Directors intimate involvement for the duration of each project. This also allows us the flexibility to expand the team as required, calling on other consulting professionals that are drawn from a pool of world-class talent", say the Directors.

It is the Esquisse way of working that makes the studio stand out – a marriage of the strategic and the intuitive. Esquisse — meaning the first sketch in an artistic creation – is central because drawing up ideas and discussing proposals immediately with a client is an intensive process of collaboration. It is a bespoke process that is likened to being measured for a hand-made suit, because it is not just about an impeccable finished product but also involves the end-user in the detailed decision making. Project visions are captured in 3D visualizations that engage the clients and the design studio's "Imagineering" skills produce one of the key benefits they deliver to developer clients.

The practice has also developed an expertise in working in emerging economies that may have a limited established planning framework. Here, they don’t just propose solutions but can draw up the Development Control Plans for their developer clients that may frame future government planning initiatives.

"Architects are often just interested in objects, landscapers in gardens and engineers in rolling out infrastructure, but we see ourselves as being much more holistic about building a place. Our practice takes our projects one step further; thinking about packaging and messages and how the brand of a development can capture the spirit of a place. It gives us an extraordinary breadth in language and in repertoire" say the Directors.