Architecture is in the details

EDITORIAL

In this edition of de-PICT, we’ve turned our focus to the, sometimes unfairly overlooked, but extremely important aspect of understanding architecture: the details. While we often prioritise broad concepts and grand forms, it’s the intricacies; the joinery, junctions, materials, and finishes, that truly bring architecture to life. Details are where ideas meet reality, and where drawings can transform into potentially buildable spaces. For students of architecture, learning to design at the detail level is a critical step. Here, abstract thinking meets the practical demands of construction. Details are the seemingly small decisions that give architecture its texture, scale, and emotion. They influence how we touch, move through, and experience place. This edition showcases student work that embraces the challenge of detail. These projects are a reminder that while big ideas, and sweeping concepts shape the vision, it’s attention to detail that makes architecture, architecture. 

Written by Matthew Sabransky, 2025 SONA President, and Ellie Munn, 2025 SONA VP Professional Development

CONTRIBUTORS

The Thinking Tree

Tyler ADAMSON | Undergraduate Student | Griffith University

Childlike creativity grows like a tree, its roots deep in boundless imagination, branches reaching freely without the weight of rules…
The design of “The Thinking Tree” combines brutalist form with the organic flow of nature, drawing inspiration from childhood recollections of climbing and reflecting under a blue Jacaranda tree. Similar to the limitless possibilities seen in the tree’s branches, the structure encourages visitors to let go of conventional design. Its enigmatic façade gives way to an interior that embodies the freedom of childish imagination, with concave and convex surfaces evolving to suit numerous purposes. This design challenges the boundaries of architecture by providing an area where nature and creativity coexist harmoniously, encouraging experimentation and fresh perspectives.

Water Beyond Practicality

Paula CALIXTO EGUES | Master of Architecture Student | Griffith University

Honouring water as sacred to First Nations people, this design fosters well-being, community, and sustainability. Incorporating water treatment, passive design, and cultural sensitivity, it offers healing spaces, social nodes, and educational opportunities while respecting the Turrbal People, the traditional custodians of Brisbane’s Red Hill.

Nucleus: Binna Burra’s Bushfire Museum Memorial

Paula CALIXTO EGUES | Master of Architecture Student | Griffith University

Inspired by the nucleus as a metaphor for community, this memorial fosters resilience, connection, and collaboration. The emotional journey through the space reflects Binna Burra’s 2019 bushfire events—before, during, and after—honouring its people’s identity and strength while supporting collective growth and well-being.

Kennett River Cabin

Lachie HARTNETT | Master of Architecture Student | RMIT

Proposed as Kennett River is submerged into a wetland state from sea level rise, the project is proposed as a system, a functioning kit of parts that can be constructed, dismantled, and reconstructed multiple times over its lifecycle. Thus, it is intended to depict the ebbs and flows of its natural and cyclical surroundings. As such, through the project’s open dialogue with its materials, assembly and context, the work seeks an ideal in which the architecture has always been there. An architecture that has not come into this landscape but out of it.

Equal Parts; A School for Every Intelligence

Brock HETHERING | Undergraduate Student | University of Technology Sydney

“Equal Parts” seeks to integrate principles of Montessori and Multiple Intelligence Theory to support a diverse learning environment. CLT & CHS steel columns lift the classrooms off the ground offering greater variability in movement. Recycled plastics & mycelium form furniture and non-structural components, such as acoustic treatment & insulation.

Structure as Organism

Jack MCSHANE | Undergraduate Student | University of Tasmania

In viewing the building as an organism, its history of ad-hoc extensions can be perceived as mutations, and regenerations. These living and changing elements come forth in the details of the structure, enabling them to be to be used as a driver for a new chapter in the building’s life as a museum for traditional timber joinery.

The Melting Pot, North Melbourne

Dominic RANDALL | Master of Architecture Student | Deakin University

Constraining site dimensions and dense, hybridized programming brought about significant challenges in improving natural light at the proposed North Melbourne grocer. To address this, a central atrium on the terrace level was ‘revealed’ through a slanted soffit carving through the upper residential block. Sketches progressed from concept to detail design to understand how lighting, tectonics, materiality and structure could be articulated to achieve this design intent.