Urbis: Can you tell me about the origins of Archier, which you recently established with Josh Fitzgerald and Chris Haddad?
Chris Gilbert: We originally met and became good friends at the University of Tasmania, during which time Chris and I spent a semester at Lund University in Sweden. When we came back to Australia in 2009 we moved to Melbourne and studied our Master of Architecture at RMIT. Josh moved over as well and studied his Master of Architecture at Deakin University. Over the next five years we were all working at different architecture firms, but we’d regularly catch up and talk about ‘another way to practice’. Coming from the University of Tasmania, we have a really hands-on approach to architecture that involves learning by making. So we started talking about creating a practice that was more involved in the making process and in research, in particular material research.