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.
