Christie Walk photo gallery
Paul Downton
Paul Downton – Architect
BSc (Hons) BArch (Wales) PhD ARAIA
Director, Ecopolis Architects Pty Ltd
Paul Downton is one of “101 Leaders in Sustainable City Making and Theory” (Prof Steffen Lehmann) and “one of the icons of sustainable development in Australia” (Prof Janis Birkeland) but he’s also a prize-winning architect and his bread and butter is designing healthy, energy-efficient, affordable houses for discerning clients.
Paul is an innovator. He was one of the first architects in South Australia to build in strawbale and the first architect in Australia to build strawable homes in the inner city, his two apartment buildings at Christie Walk include the first ‘intensive’ green roof in the state and the first building-integrated semi-transparent photovoltaic panels, and Christie Walk broke new ground for inner-city living in Australia.
As well as being innovative and responsive, his architecture is celebrated for embodying traditional values.
Paul’s goal is to make architecture that is a natural expression of the lives of the people and place that it is made for, and to make a positive contribution towards tackling the heady mix of climate change and ecological mayhem that is bearing down on us.
His fees are about average for domestic architectural services with an initial consultation fee of $200+GST for a ‘long hour’ in which individual potential clients explain and explore their brief and learn about the processes that take a budding idea and turn it into a building and a home.
The aim is that every potential client leaves the initial consultation with a clear sense of what is and isn’t possible, a reasonable idea of what it might cost, and a definite opinion as to whether they want to work with Paul to realise their dream.
Paul is the editor and primary author of the last two editions of the federal government’s award-winning ‘Your Home Technical Manual’ – Australia’s best compendium of information on sustainable homes.
Whether you want to change the world or simply build a nice place to live, it all comes back to your home.
More information about Paul’s work, including many examples of his architecture, can be found on his practice website:
