Vokes and Peters

My first contact with Stuart Vokes occurred a decade ago, after viewing his practice’s entry for the invitational About Face 2009 competition run by Think Brick. Impressed by the scheme, I contacted his office expressing admiration for the entry’s premise and quality. This communication was graciously returned, leading to a meeting months later in Perth where I was confronted by Vokes’s self-assured proclamation that he was a “suburban architect.” Later, we discussed Vokes’s claim in our office at length, leading to a realization that there is a palpable difference between architects who choose to work in the suburbs (like us), and what it means to be suburban architects like Vokes and Peters.

In visiting the Subiaco House and listening I was left wondering how this practice, so deeply associated with “Brisbanian localism,” could build in faraway Perth and maintain relevance. I wondered from what other basis this work arose, because it departed so substantially from Perth’s suburban fabric built from the 1980s onwards, when houses seemed to turn away from the street and in upon themselves.