Consolidation: Ideas, Process and Spatial Storytelling
Branch Studio Architects
The consolidation of ideas is key to the way Branch Studio Architects defines and formalises its architecture. Consolidation: Ideas, Process and Spatial Storytelling features a selection of buildings and projects from a ten-year period (2012–22) that celebrates the Australian architectural practice’s rigorous, award-winning and design-intensive work.
Founded in 2012 by Brad Wray and Nicholas Russo, Branch Studio Architects has gone from strength to strength, producing compelling and heavily design-driven architecture ranging from residential projects to small- and large-scale educational projects. Through the exploration of 11 built, in-progress and unbuilt works, from Pavilion Between Trees to the multi-award-winning Piazza Dell’Ufficio to the highly anticipated Arts and Technology Centre in Melbourne, the book traces the process of ideas and project-making, and how these translate through materiality, space and light to tell stories about place, time, people and context.
Woven throughout the book are conversations between Wray, Russo and other creative thinkers. These include the celebrated Melbourne architect Michael White; renowned architectural photographer Peter Clarke — who provides a rich insight into the process of photographically documenting the studio’s works; and an essay on the studio’s projects and connection to both Australian and international modernism by Melbourne architectural historian Dr Conrad Hamann.
Brad Wray and Nicholas Russo have worked together for 10 years.
Wray & Russo were both educated at The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Melbourne with Wray spending a year abroad studying at the Accademia Di Architettura in Mendrisio, Switzerland/ Italy.Their design-intensive architecture practice - Branch Studio Architects was founded in Melbourne in 2012.With a small but very capable team of six, they are interested in architecture for a diversity of people and prides itself on a hands-on crafted approach to every project, no matter how small or large.Both Wray& Russo work collaboratively on every project in the studio with Wray’s primary role in the studio is the design & creative director and Russo’s primary role in the studio is director of project realisation.
The practice has worked rigorously over the last 10 years building on foundations for the next chapter of the practice. Their first book, Proemial, was released in 2017 as a means of evaluating and consolidating a discourse moving forward as the practice was evolving.The practice has won over 25 both local and International awards - often pushing the boundaries of just facilitating client briefs and making the most out of limited budgets. Notably - their project - Piazza Dell’Ufficio won best Interior Project of the Year and Best Small workplace of the Year at the 2019 Dezeen awards in London.Their work has been extensively published both locally in Australia and Internationally. The studio finds educational projects particularly rewarding as they have the ability to affect and expose the possibilities of design in multiple people’s lives (particularly kids), some of whom would not who some normally have the means or money to explore.Heading into their eleventh year of practice, they team is excited about commencing work on some larger-scale educational projects and budgets (AUD$15-25 million) yet still are adamant about maintaining interest in the smallest of projects and their infinite possibilities.
Both Wray & Russo have been guest design critics at a variety of Melbourne Architecture Institutions including The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and The University of Melbourne.In 2017 Wray and Russo were invited to lecture at the Shelter Redefining Refuge Symposium at The School of Taliesin, Taliesin West, Scottsdale, Arizona. In 2020 Wray was invited to lecture at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra for the esteemed Contemporary Australian Architects Speaker Series.
Wray was also invited to be on the judging panel for the Australian Institute of Architects Victorian Chapter Architecture Awards in 2017 and more recently the 2020 Dezeen Awards in London.
