Paul Hotston, Architect, Phorm Architecture + Design
Happiness and friendships are the great registers of success in anyone's life ...
Walking along Boundary Street in West End, it seems every second person has a wave, smile or friendly greeting for Paul Hotston. Having lived and worked within this tightly knit village for ten years, Paul is a West End native. An architect at his self-made, small practice Phorm Architecture + Design, Paul maintains a balance of residential projects between the Southeast pocket and North Queensland. In Brisbane, Phorm works with old Queenslanders, with the aim to stretch the boundaries to escape the traditional site. In contrast, regional Queensland presents a blank canvas of empty green landscapes, where Paul and the team can create contemporary residences that are defined in their sense of space. With design managing to rhythmically trickle into the every day, Paul’s three young boys even seem to be receiving an almost subconscious architectural education as they grow, with Paul currently helping the eldest build a cardboard model of his school for an assignment. The Weekend Edition caught up with Paul to discover his weekend essentials.
How do you like to start the weekend?
I would love to ease into it with a couple of quiet drinks and a relaxed conversation. However, having a young family means it’s usually a swift interchange between the working week and the family weekend. We eat out on Friday nights and at present are intent on finding Brisbane’s best traditional pizza.
What is your favorite thing to do on a Saturday morning?
If we’re not at far-flung sporting fields with the kids, the family and I head to the West End Markets. We enjoy the village atmosphere and the gentle rub up against Brisbane between the stalls.
How do you like to unwind?
A glass of red wine whilst I’m cooking or stealing a quiet moment in the day to read on the couch.
What are your essentials for a well-spent weekend?
Time with Iva and the boys – a bike ride, a daytrip out of the city, visiting GOMA or something new. We have a great group of friends and any chance to wedge in a cheeky drink or share a meal with any or all of them is always hugely rewarding.
What’s something you’ve been meaning to do on the weekend but haven’t got around to yet?
Unfortunately like the story of the shoemaker and his unshod family – our house is waiting patiently for my attention. I always wish I had more time for sketching.
What’s your favorite thing to do on a Sunday evening?
I often keep it simple on Sunday evenings, I like to shut down, re-boot and prepare for the week ahead. You’d probably find me watching a DVD in a make-shift cubby house, which one of my sons and I have built in the living room.
What are you looking forward to next weekend?
Camping with a couple of other families at Flat Rock. I love the process of ‘setting up camp’. The other parents enjoy mocking me with mimicry calls for ‘prospect and refuge’. I look forward to the drive home smelling of the campfire with everyone else exhausted and asleep in the car.
What are you reading at the moment?
A book on Juha Leiviskä – a Finnish contemporary of Alvar Aalto. I’m also tracking The Big Rethink in the The Architectural Review. Unfortunately, novels die a slow, unnatural death by my bedside table.
What inspires you?
People often, but places mostly. I love Brisbane’s baroque backyards and the paradox I see between our lightweight ‘impermanent’ architectural heritage and our preoccupation to replace it with mass and ‘permanence’. Travel. The dying afternoon light on just about everything. The life my father has lived.
What was your childhood dream?
I always aspired to be an artist. At school, in comparison to other subjects, art was endless, intangible, unguided and ultimately challenging.
What has been your greatest achievement?
My family and sustaining my own practice. I’m constantly in awe of the incredible collaborators who have joined me along the way. It was also a great moment being recognised by Wallpaper* magazine as one of 30 international emerging practices in 2009. Since then we have been invited to design projects in Brisbane, throughout regional Queensland and interstate.
What is success to you?
I always wish to take pride from whatever I accomplish whether it be at work, with family or at play. Ultimately, I believe happiness and friendships are the great registers of success in anyone’s life.
What are your words of wisdom?
Always maintain a sense of humour in everything you do; it will lighten the load in the hardest times and you’ll enjoy the good times all the more. And what you may lack naturally in ability, make up for doubly in perseverance.
Only a local would know … West End Coffee House serves the most authentic street stall Thai food in Brisbane.
FAVORITE WEEKEND SPOT TO:
Perk up … West End Coffee House
Relax … GOMA
Dine … Sardine Tin, South Bank
Indulge … Sono Japanese, Hamilton
Shop … Avid Reader and Folio Books
Catch-up … Any of West End’s array of excellent watering holes – Archive, The End, Lock n Load
Be inspired … The uncharted territories and backstreets of Brisbane, full of ad-hoc architecture created by non-architects