Q&A: Carolyn McLean

McLean believes in designing projects that are fit for the present and the future
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For its first 100 years, Adelaide-based Woods Bagot kept itself relatively isolated from the rest of the world. Then, because of a development boom in Asia in the 1970s, the firm expanded into that region with offices in China and Malaysia.

With Malaysia buzzing in the lead up to the 1998 Commonwealth Games, Carolyn McLean—stuck in a post-university recession in Australia—took a chance.

After a couple years with a small Malaysian firm, she longed for a bit of Aussie camaraderie. Contacting Woods Bagot Malaysia with a simple message of, “I’m here and this is what I’ve been doing”, McLean was told about a great project for which the firm was competing. She was also told that if they won it, she’d get to run it.

That job was a hotel project in Sarawak and they did win it. Upon arriving in the Woods Bagot office on her first day, she was told to go home and pack her bags because she was flying to Kuching for her first client meeting. She would spend the next two years on that project.

Upon completion, McLean moved to Sydney for four years while Woods Bagot continued to grow and prosper.

After a four-year hiatus with a smaller local firm in Sydney, McLean “got itchy feet and wanted to travel again” and so she rejoined the company in 2005. After a couple years in the Dubai studio, McLean became an associate and in 2008 she was invited to become a partner. She gave Jeff Roberts an hour of her time.

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Tell me about the beginning…

CM: Even when I was young, I remember drawing and designing houses and building things out of Lego. I asked my parents what you call someone who does that for a living. They told me it was an architect and I knew then what I wanted to be.

Architecture is a wonderful profession; I cannot imagine doing anything else. We all get into architecture because we honestly believe we can make people’s lives better.

Can you expand a bit?

CM: What drove me to the field is the excitement of building something and the physical nature of that process.

Even as a child you can appreciate beautiful buildings. Once you actually go inside a building and experience it, you begin to realise that there’s much more to it than just the built form.

ARCHITECTURE & SUSTAINABILITY

What does sustainability mean?

CM: Sustainability to me is about making buildings that respond to what they’re being designed for. It’s shocking how much architecture is being designed and built with no reference to the site or context, which is crazy.

How are the people that use that building ever going to feel like they’re meant to be there? You’ve got to ask yourself: What is the site? What country am I in? Who is going to use it now and in 50 years time? Why is this building being built? How is the building going to grow and adapt to the 10 or 12 different owners it will have over its lifetime? How is it going to be energy-efficient and deliver a fantastic space?

A really big part of sustainable design is not only designing something fit for the present purpose, but also for the purpose it will serve in the future. Otherwise—and we see this all the time—buildings put up today are pulled down in 20 years because they simply cannot respond. Then all that material is wasted and virgin materials are used to replace it with something else.

The other side of sustainability is cultural. People need to change the way they think, which isn’t going to be easy. For some people the decision to live or run their business sustainably is going to take a generation; for others, the change will happen sooner.

There is a need for architects to recognize that if we want to build these buildings, we have to convince them that it’s the right thing to do. The ‘cycle of inaction’ is something I feel very strongly about.