Colourful Kingfisher

Graeme Fisher
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Godwin Austen Johnson’s youngest partner, Graeme Fisher, gave MEA an hour of his time to talk about sustainability, structural gymnastics, Sasha & the Sultan of Brunei

From the tender age of 12, Graeme Fisher preferred the sharp edges and orthogonal lines of buildings and cityscapes to the blurred realism of flowing landscapes. Through the advice of his father, Fisher was able to mould his childhood passion for drawing and painting into a bona fide career choice by the time he was 16. Since then, he’s never looked back. “In fact, I can’t remember ever thinking that I didn’t want to do this,” he says.

A scholastic career that included as many A-levels and honour rolls as socializing and sport, Fisher graduated from the University of Nottingham (UK) in 1995 torn between a desire to get straight into architecture and a burgeoning wanderlust.

A decision to satisfy both passions landed Fisher in Brunei, despite his admitted inability to locate the Southeast Asian paradise on a map at the time of his interview. Despite being unprepared for the massive relocation, Fisher’s abilities soon positioned him well in the firm, working for the country’s most discerning client: The Sultan.

So there he was: 25 years old; a month out of university; working on commissions for the Sultan of Brunei and loving every minute. The fact he’s now a partner in one of Dubai’s most established and respected architecture firms begs a few questions….

You obviously found a good bit of success in Brunei. Why give it all up and return to the UK?

My time in Brunei was both good and bad. The good aspect of that was that what we designed, pretty much got built. In fact, I designed a really large international school which was built within two years of me being there. So, by the age of 26, I had my first major project under my belt. That’s rare in this field. It was brilliant.

But at the same time, I kind of felt that it wasn’t the real world and that I needed to get back to the UK and spend a period of time really practising and learning the essence of what professional architecture was about.

So, at the end of 1997, I went back to London and got a job with a large commercial practice called Sheppard Robson (SR), which is a great practice. When I joined, they were about 100 strong doing a lot of commercial and education work. I ended up being there for about nine years. I came through the ranks there. I was given some great opportunities there and I was made an associate in 2003.

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I was very happy in London but I was fortunate or unfortunate enough to marry an ex-pat’s daughter – my wife Sasha, who I met in Brunei – and she’d made it clear that she’d like to do what her parents had done and live abroad. I’d had some great experiences in London but I also was starting to think about being an ex-pat again.

One cold morning in February 2006, we woke up freezing, and told ourselves that we needed to start thinking seriously about moving abroad. Within a couple of months, I’d come out here for some interviews.

The practice

Among all the options, why did you ultimately choose GAJ?

Although I looked at some of the other larger practices in Dubai, I walked in to GAJ and met Brian Johnson [GAJ managing partner] and immediately something clicked. I think it was that GAJ has a great reputation for doing great, unique buildings. It doesn’t cater to the common masses. Brian always describes it as offering a one-off solution to the one-off client.

The other thing about GAJ that appealed to me was that it wasn’t a polished diamond. It was certainly a diamond but it was a bit rough around the edges. I could see that Brian wanted to take it to the next level and that hugely appealed.

I chose GAJ because I thought, above everyone else, it was going places. In that respect it’s been a fantastic move. It was difficult to move from London because I enjoyed SR so much and I had a fantastic role there but, all things considered, it has been a great move and I can see that the practice has come a long way.

We still have a long way to go; we’re still very ambitious about where we want to take the practice and how we develop what we offer – from both a business and design point of view – but I think certainly it’s moving in a really exciting direction.