Office

We are a micro-international practice working as a single oce across three locations: Sydney, Hobart and Copenhagen. As a collective of architects and urbanists, we are engaged in the world from opposite corners of it, bringing breadth and depth of experience and multiple perspectives.

Our approach is underpinned by three key values: Research, Rigour and Respect. This means that each project is approached a-new, in pursuit of uncovering the unique possibilities of each site and brief, and devising a compelling design argument. This embeds a resilience in our work that provides our clients and collaborators with the confidence that their aspirations for the project can be realised.

RESEARCH

TERROIR has always been underpinned by a high research capacity. This research takes many forms and is the basis of the expertise we bring to every project. Research is important to us in two ways:

1. As an acknowledgement that in a field as complex as architecture and urbanism, deep knowledge about issues important to our work is essential;
2. The structuring of a practice around a culture of genuine research influences every team member, and what occurs or every project, every day.

Our research focus means we are not isolated to any single sector or project type. We bring a keen interest in how we can achieve the best quality, equitable and positive outcome from every project whether design work, building, urban design, writing or publication.

RIGOUR

TERROIR was founded on an interest in how communities work with complex spatial, cultural and economic problems, particularly in sensitive or strategically important sites. Rigorous testing, genuine care and collaboration sit at the core of our approach to every project.

Our work sets an agenda for equitable city-building, place-specific design and supports these agendas with evidence. We bring these together through the re-making of places. We say re-making, as all places already exist. The most significant and successful places are those where their long history and deep logics are bought to the surface in new work. We always build on and with respect to what already exists – often revealing this is the project itself.

RESPECT

We feel a responsibility to contribute and care for our world. We demand of ourselves and our clients that every commission creates a lasting social, economic and environmental impact, specific to that place and which transcends the project itself. For our projects in Australia, we believe the continuing custodianship of the land and generous leadership of First Nations People are a critical part of the future.

Our work represents over two decades of thinking and working about connecting people and place. Projects are not designed as isolated set pieces or objects but are part of a larger story and contribute to a broader set of relations. They make connections, and in doing so they seek both a heightened experience of place but an increased motivation to care for it. Each project is therefore a story about this quest, and like stories, they contain their own specific narrative – a combination of symbols, metaphors, flashbacks and hyperbole. They contain memories and imagine new futures.

Our Australian projects are situated on Aboriginal land, or Country – a constellation of territories that were never ceded. The kinship systems connected to Country are complex and overlapping and so do not always overlap neatly with specific project locations. We therefore acknowledge collectively the Bunnerong, Dharug, D’harawal, Eora, Gai-maragal, Gundungara, kriwalayti, nipaluna, pataway, trumanyapayna, turikina truwala and Wann nation groups and kinship systems on whose Country we have worked. Their continuing custodianship of the land and generous leadership is a critical part of our future.