This discussion picks up on ideas from Truth and Lies in Architecture by Richard Francis-Jones and continues a strong tradition of public dialogue on the role of design in society.

After sold-out sessions in Sydney and Brisbane, this Brisbane edition invites fresh reflection on the influence architects have, and the responsibilities they carry, in shaping our built environment.

Presented in partnership with the Australian Institute of Architects and Think Brick Australia, this event brings together a panel of leading architects and designers to examine the fence and the villa, two typologies loaded with meaning.

The line-up includes Richard Francis-Jones, Design Director, fjcstudio, Zuzana Kovar, Co-Director, zuzana&Nicholas, Dirk Yates, Director, Speculative Architecture and Erin McDonald, Associate Director, Blaklash. The conversation will be moderated by Chris Saines CNZM, Director of QAGOMA.

In this interview with Architecture & Design, Richard Francis-Jones, Design Director at fjcstudio, talks with Clémence Carayol about these two powerful ideas in architecture, the fence and the villa.

The familiar forms, he argues, have shaped not just our suburbs, but how we relate to land, community, and each other. It’s a conversation about exclusion, privilege, and what it means to build responsibly in a time of growing social and environmental pressure.

The Fencing of Architecture and the Villa of the Architect speakers.jpg

The evening promises an impressive line-up of speakers / supplied

Architecture & Design: How do the themes of fences and villas expand your exploration of architecture’s ethical and social responsibilities?

Richard Francis-Jones: In Truth and Lies in Architecture, I questioned the illusions we uphold as architects; the stories we tell ourselves and others. The fence and the villa are powerful architectural typologies that have defined our relationship to this land and have modelled our settlements.

An examination into their origin, influence and consequence can help reveal how architecture can act as both a tool of liberation and a mechanism of exclusion. The fence is the spatial expression of exclusion; a thin line, indifferent to landscape, that separates the ‘mine’ from the ‘not mine’, a tool of colonial imposition, and environmental exploitation.

The villa, conversely, is the architectural expression of individuality and privilege; the separated dwelling that surveils, controls, and retreats from the communal. Together, they embody the ethical failures of our spatial systems: alienation from place, disintegration of community, and prioritisation of individual dominion over collective care.

In confronting the consequence of these typologies, we are compelled to ask: what kind of architecture can serve not exclusion, but relation; not ownership, but responsibility?

Why did you choose the fence and the villa as central typologies, and what do they reveal about spatial equity, exclusion, and privilege?

The fence and villa have been particularly effective instruments in the historical and contemporary partitioning of land, power and identity. The fence, through its exclusive claim of ownership and the villa, through withdrawal, reduce the landscape into a view or a possession.

Together in the compressed form of suburban dwellings, they create perhaps the most environmentally and socially destructive of architectural typologies. We must understand and confront architecture’s complicity in this destruction.

In discussions at the event, how do you see the role of the architect evolving in response to urban challenges such as isolation and environmental decline?

The contemporary condition is one of profound alienation, from one another, from our cities, from the earth. The fence and the villa are both a cause and a symptom of this disconnection. But if we are to respond meaningfully to the urgencies of isolation and ecological collapse, the architect must move beyond the production of objects or images.

We must become facilitators of social and environmental repair, attuned to the fragile relationships between land, culture, and community. The challenge is not to produce more, faster, but to restore the conditions for being, for belonging; for architecture to become a form of care.

What makes the event resonate so strongly with audiences in Sydney and Brisbane? There is an underlying recognition, perhaps even grief, that our environments have become increasingly enclosed, privatised, and surveilled.

I think it speaks to something many already feel: a deepening sense that something is profoundly wrong in the way we live. We see the dominance of the fenced block and the suburban villa. We experience an increasing sense of isolation from each other and alienation from the natural world. This expanding form of dwelling might offer quantity and comfort, but at the expense of something deeper and more essential to our humanity.

What this conversation can do is give form to that unease. It doesn’t necessarily prescribe solutions; instead, it names the conditions that so many have sensed but not yet articulated. It helps us understand that the way we build has consequences: social, psychological and environmental.

Audiences responded, I think, because we recognised ourselves in these questions, our estrangement from others and from place, as well as the complicity of architecture and the deep cultural and social foundation in this estrangement. The event became a space not of answers, but of recognition and understanding that is in itself provoking and creatively powerful.

What perspectives do you hope the diverse speakers will bring, and how will this influence the architectural conversation?

The fence and the villa are not abstract forms; they shape the landscape and our lives differently, often unequally. Architecture has helped shape these forms and has also benefited creatively from the isolation and experimentation that it has offered.

This conversation will likely be unsettling and provocative. But it is through this cross-pollination of perspectives and provocation that architecture might begin towards more situated and generous forms of practice.

We have an excellent group of speakers to explore these questions: Chris Saines understands how culture frames and forms social values and ethics, what it reveals and conceals, and how it grants meaning and shapes public consciousness. Zuzana Kovar brings a deep sensitivity to spatial relations; her practice and research ask us to consider how architecture is felt, not only seen or constructed.

Dirk Yates reminds us to slow down; his work often turns our gaze back on itself, asking how we look, how we gather, how we inhabit. And Erin McDonald grounds the entire discussion in Country; her work makes clear that design must begin with responsibility, with listening, and with the authority of lived cultural knowledge.

Together, they do not complete the conversation; they expand it, redirect it, and hold it open to deeper forms of accountability. That, I believe, is what this moment requires.

Attendees are eligible for 1 formal CPD point. Whether you’re an architect, designer, student or simply interested in how buildings shape the world around us, this is a chance to engage with big ideas and timely questions in a relaxed, open setting. Don’t miss out, and secure your ticket here.

Image: The Fencing of Architecture and the Villa of the Architect / supplied

Clémence Carayol

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