Placement
Melbourne-based Placement are a team of four—sharing a drive for meaningful design, authenticity, passion and endless curiosity.
Photography: Tom Ross & Tim O'Connor I Styling: Jess Kneebone
From left to right - James Flaherty, Stephanie Kitingan, Jacqueline O’Brien and Ashlee Pukk from Placement. Photo: Tim O'Connor
Brunswick House by Placement. Photo: Tom Ross. Styling: Jess Kneebone
Brunswick House by Placement. Photo: Tom Ross. Styling: Jess Kneebone
Hello Placement—can you introduce yourselves?
Placement: Placement is currently a tribe of four—made up of three directors Steph, Jacqui, James and our strong and mighty graduate Ashlee. James, Jacqui, and Steph established Placement in 2019 with projects in VIC, NSW and SA across the single and multi-residential, civic, retail and educational sectors. Outside practice, Steph and Jacqui are involved with the Institute of Architects as well as academia—Jacqui teaches Architectural Design at Monash University and Steph is on the Architecture Industry Advisory Board at the University of Melbourne, and has been a yoga teacher for over a decade now.
What drives your creativity as a team?
Our creativity is fuelled by what’s going on around us, and the people we collaborate with—to enquire as a perpetual student, never resting on our laurels. We hold a quiet confidence knowing architecture has massive impacts on people and place, and we offer our contributions from an insightful, quiet place, and this can be a huge drive. We’re always looking for ways to solve multiple problems in a project, and this typically requires a creative approach to design thinking. There’s a great deal of rigour and depth to the work we do, we’re thorough and meticulous, and our clients trust us to take this creative journey with them.
Describe the Placement design ethos in one sentence…
As a practice we strive to maintain a creative zeal, remain curious in the process, and tap into the knowledge spring of the people we’re working with.
What’s the first design element you notice when you walk into a room?
When it comes to people's homes (in particular), interior spaces reflect the interiority of humans, their psychological architecture, so we like to take a nuanced, soft approach to uncovering this. As an architect you take in so much information when you first enter a space, to get a feel for how people live, the essence of their lives. So to sum up, it would be taking it all in at once - the colours, furniture, where the windows are, the bits and bobs of the room, how people are occupying the space. It's a first impression impact moment that happens in a flash.
A material that you always gravitate to in your designs?
We gravitate towards robust materials that tell the tale of time, and stand the test of time—brick, stone, timbers, glass—letting client’s sentimental items tell the story of their lives; their art, their furniture and their lighting.
What influences your work the most?
We often look to past designers as their body of work is expansive, which is incredibly humbling—it’s also interesting to observe how their work has evolved over time and how we can extrapolate a contemporary expression of old ideas. From architects, furniture designers, landscape architects to artists. It would be tricky to name one designer in particular as our projects are so site specific.
The best part about working in a team of 4?
We all have different passions, which is the power of our collaboration—speaking from the perspective of the directors, we’re like a really stable three-legged stool, and this is a great strength in a business. From a design perspective, we all have different individual strengths, and we all revel in different parts of the architectural process. Steph loves drawing by hand and refining details, Jacqui is a gun at the planning stage and for James it's about big picture thinking. Each of us will lead projects individually from inception to completion, but there are many steps along the way where we’re leaning on each other's skills to get the best out of the project, Ash included!
“We all have different passions, which is the power of our collaboration—speaking from the perspective of the directors, we’re like a really stable three-legged stool, and this is a great strength in a business.”
Parkville House by Placement. Photo: Tom Ross. Styling: Jess Kneebone
Parkville House by Placement. Photo: Tom Ross. Styling: Jess Kneebone
As a team, do you have any creative rituals or routines you follow when starting a new project?
We have a tight onboarding process, which involves a briefing phase as our first creative endeavour with the clients. Here we ask them to reflect on very specific questions about themselves, their emotional and physical needs and their day-to-day and seasonal rhythms. Their memories of home, safety and rest. What inspires them, and what they’ve observed about the nature surrounding them, tangible or intangible, as a way to connect to Country.
Clients typically respond to this homework with rigour and occasional bewilderment. We’ve received art, music, poetry, old photographs from homes gone-by and recent holiday snaps, alongside the usual smattering of flashy houses and details they like from current magazines or Instagram accounts. Together it compiles a complex web of who they are and who they would like to be.
Adjacent to the briefing phase we also interrogate the site. We critically observe the scale and nature of the surroundings and all the players (human and non-human). Here we try to reveal the unseen. After all this investigating, only then do we begin to weave the story specific to the project.
The most rewarding part of your job is…
Helping to create meaningful spaces that complement and uncomplicate everyday life.
And the most challenging part…
Mediating the realities of client’s budgets and their desires.
What’s your ultimate dream design project?
To us, it's not specifically about the project—every project has the capacity to be impactful. In a sense, we don't feel hemmed in creatively as it's not so much about the type of project, but the client being engaged and inspired by the process and the design. You could say it's about having the dream client who is willing to go on the journey with you.
What is a good piece of advice you’ve been given or would give to someone starting their design career?
Use your hands—draw, make, make mistakes.
What are you most excited about that’s coming up for Placement this year?
We’re really excited to get the ball rolling with some larger projects in the office—we’ve got a townhouse ready to jump into documentation, which is a jump in scale for the practice, and are involved in more civic work. Apart from that, there are some stunning residential projects about to go into construction that we can’t wait to see come to life.