Hand drawing lies at the heart of Jeremy Bull’s work. The Australian architect is interested in the relationship between people and places, in the stories a building can tell and in the drawn line as the first way of thinking through a space. From that conviction comes the phrase his studio, Alexander &CO., uses to define every commission: a client’s story, made by hand.
Bull studied architecture at the University of Sydney between 1997 and 2002. From 2009 to 2013 he led the studio Akin Creative, and in January 2013 he founded Alexander &CO., which he has led ever since as principal architect. In little more than a decade, he has turned it into a multidisciplinary practice with projects in Australia and abroad.
Architecture and interiors as one
The defining trait of the studio is the simultaneous coordination of architecture and interior design. Both disciplines move forward together from the outset, and the team follows each project through every stage. The work begins with site analysis and the master plan, continues with architectural and interior design, planning approvals and construction documentation, and carries on during construction and beyond. Furniture and object design and the styling of spaces complete the process.
Its portfolio brings together bespoke homes, restaurants and venues, retail, civic buildings and planning schemes for private clients, developers and public bodies. The projects draw on the tradition of architectural modernity and on a close reading of the mark that people, site and time leave on each place. The studio is a member of the Australian Institute of Architects and the Design Institute of Australia.
An ethic of circularity
Alexander &CO. is a certified B Corp and a carbon neutral organisation. It offsets its emissions through Greening Australia’s Peniup project, which restores landscapes and biodiversity by reforesting native species in Western Australia. In its method, sustainability is measured through design decisions, such as attention to the life cycle of materials, the reduction of construction resources through the integration of architecture and interiors, planning for the building’s useful life and supply chain traceability, with the aim of neutralising carbon and waste.
The studio has also made explicit commitments to human rights, aligned with the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, and to reconciliation with Australia’s First Peoples. It understands the latter as a process of learning about the country’s colonial history and about the bond between First Nations and their Country.
A company focused on people’s development
Internally, Alexander &CO. operates as a deliberately developmental organisation, focused on the growth of its people. It grounds its systems of feedback, mentoring and external coaching in the constructive developmental theory of psychologist Robert Kegan, on the premise that the team’s personal growth translates into better communities and better environments.
Alongside Bull, the leadership team is completed by Ellie Bradley, Director of Practice, with more than thirty years of experience in luxury interiors, advertising, branding and studio leadership across Australia and Asia, and Tess Glasson, Marketing Director, who after three decades in the lifestyle sector has spent ten years leading the studio’s image and communications and is one of the driving forces behind its founding purpose.
For Bull, every project begins in conversation with those who will live in it and ends with the objects they will choose to keep close. Between those two points, the studio works with pencil, material and time.