By Julia Gamolina

Kerstin Thompson is the design director and leader on all projects undertaken by KTA, supported by a dedicated and skilled team. Her design excellence, project success and strategic thinking has been recognised through a raft of architectural awards at state, national and international levels.

In recognition of her work and contribution to the profession and tertiary education, Kerstin was elevated to Life Fellow by the Australian Institute of Architects in 2017. In 2022, she was appointed Member of the Order of Australia (AM) and, in 2023, she was awarded the Gold Medal, the Australian Institute of Architects’ highest honour.

JG: I’ve long admired your practice. What are you most focused on for the rest of 2025?

KT: I’m very focused on what it takes to build and sustain an architectural practice that looks after its people and that is a desirable workplace because it is financially sustainable too. I’m committed to the redesign of our profession and our model of service provision: what we do, how we do it, how we value it, how we in turn are valued, and why architecture is worth valuing in the first place.

How we tell the story of good architecture is key. We’re focusing less on a laundry list of things we’ve done, and more on what it means for our client and community, the impact our work will have on their life. Towards this we need to gather more data, more substantiation of why the quality design of the built environment matters, how it actually makes a considerable difference to everyone’s life.

On this note, what should all of us be looking at and paying attention to for the remainder of the year?

Our models of traditional practice are broken. As an industry we are finally confronting the true cost of architectural labor, in both a financial and emotional sense. However, our fee scale and authority within the construction and development industries has yet to catch up or align.

There is a lot of agreement on what undermines the resilience of our profession: procurement, fees, workplace conditions. Without a major overhaul of four main elements, I fear more people will leave. These elements are the services we are best placed to provide; which are most impactful for more people and better environments; how we value and deliver our services; how we obtain proper renumeration commensurate with the level of skill, risk, and value. We are losing very fine architects already to project management and consultancy work; these architects see a better life working two well-paid days in a consultancy than four or five poorly paid ones in architecture, especially if they’re juggling raising young children, elder care, everything else we do in life. And as much as we have told ourselves purpose is everything, right now, purpose is not enough. Try paying a mortgage with it.

Another key challenge that many especially in leadership positions have shared is the increasingly difficult task of balancing the needs of a team with individual ones. When one of us can’t do their part someone else will have to take an extra load. And this is burning out considerate, committed architects, attempting to find this balance.

Now let's go back a little bit — tell me about why you studied architecture, and how you chose where you studied architecture.

Architecture at RMIT relentlessly bridges industry with the academy as mutually beneficial sites for speculation. Then because I failed maths, had no science and an interview over a score was my only hope for gaining entry.

Why architecture? I now understand its because of my longstanding fascination with what it takes for people to feel at home in the world, and architecture’s part in this. “Home” is anywhere people feel supported, by space, in their purpose, whether momentary or regular….a workplace, a school, a campus, dwelling etc.

So what is architecture’s part in this? What can architecture do for people? What can people do with the architecture given to them? These are questions I continue to wrestle with because on the one hand I maintain faith in architecture’s capacity to make a difference while also maintaining a humility around its impact. For example, yes it can make a physical home but it cannot compensate say for a loss of homeland.

The limits of architecture’s power, the sometimes happy failures of this and admiration for humans capacity to make do, adapt, etc. Built form comes alive in combination with life, daily habits and activities. We have to practice space. I like practice because it suggests something on going, never finished, of which architecture is just a part.

“Too much architectural impact is measured, at least by architects, on ideas of perfection and precision in highly controlled circumstances. What we need is an elevation of the ‘pretty good’ everyday building that will positively impact more people for more time. Get our hands dirty, in un-ideal circumstances.”

— Kerstin Thompson

You started KTA right out of architecture school, if not while you were in school. How did you decide it was the right path and right time for you, to start your own firm, and how are you tackling the challenges you’ve just outlined by setting an example of a model of practice?

During my studies I worked in several practices in Australia and in Italy. These early experiences exposed me to desirable and less desirable ways to practice. A significant part of the industry assumed that the price for design excellence was low pay, long hours. So I aspired to establish a practice that combined design integrity with fair pay and reasonable conditions. One where it was possible to combine practice leadership and family life; where people could be themselves.

After four years teaching at RMIT I started the practice in 1994. I had no particular plan but I did have a hunch that an architectural practice could rethink some of the questionable myths foundational to its most celebrated figures, and question the role of the “Architect” – typically male, and depicted as in control, uncompromising, and showing no doubt. And if they practiced with their life partner it was common for their role to be implied as secondary or in support of their partner’s primary architectural leadership. The upside of this was plenty of opportunity to redefine ways of being an architect.

How do you feel like you’ve redefined it?

Teaching helped — taking, articulating and pursuing a position, and also developing a set of themes, interests, preoccupations. In becoming a pracademic — moving between the academy and industry — I became adept at integrating the ideal and the actual. This reinforced the valuable entwinement of industry with the school, practice with speculation, as mutually supportive endeavors. Each enables the other to be better. It has been a significant influence on my own and Melbourne’s architectural culture.

I was also always cautious about positioning. Like many emerging practices in Australia, the individual house formed the beginnings of KTA and its recognition. But especially as a woman architect I feared being pigeonholed and aligned only with domestic. I determined to take on a wide scope of project type and scale turning KTA from housing to civic. Our diversifying portfolio was consolidated by the first of several police stations.

How have you evolved with thirty years of leading a firm? What have you learned?

I learned a lot about design leadership. At KTA, our modus operandi is to generate and deliver architecture of integrity without being an uncompromising, authoritarian, belligerent asshole. Or dickhead. I describe this as the accommodation of differences, of conflict and the contingent with intent. Not dogma. Many architects also may not think about all that is involved in running their own practice beyond design — the operations, finances, positioning, business development, recruitment, etc. Putting the right conditions in place — especially right level of fees — required for proper resourcing. Thriving people and a thriving practice make better buildings.

Working on sites early on in my career alongside teaching gave me skills to balance the ideal and the actual which of course comes into play relentlessly on site. Years of talking with students developed my capacity to articulate a concept, define a clarity of intent and critically pursue this through the messy, imperfect, negotiated and contingent process that is practice.

“It’s not luck that makes a good project, it’s what design intelligence does with the ordinary that is the true mark of good architect.”

— Kerstin Thompson

Looking back at it all, what have been the biggest challenges? How did you both manage through perceived disappointments or setbacks?

It used to take longer to recover from professional disappointments, like missing out on a project, or coming close but losing a competition. Now we are quicker to settle and accept a loss. If we’ve put forward our true design intent, the genuine values of our people and their methods of engaging with a prospective client, and these were not selected, then it wasn’t the right fit. That’s ok. Call me Pollyanna but it’s a waste of energy and a sure path to bitterness to continue to lament the ones that got away. Instead focus on the ones you’ve got and deliver on the promise they have. Because, and this is most important to understand, the promise is in what architectural intelligence can bring to any project.

While some projects appear to hold more promise — like a museum — any project can be ordinary in the hands of a less thoughtful practitioner. Conversely a seemingly ordinary project — repeat types like schools — in the hands of a thoughtful practitioner can yield excellence: It’s not luck that makes a good project, it’s what design intelligence does with the ordinary that is the true mark of good architect.

What have you also learned in the last six months?

I’ve developed increased respect for effective and clear leadership — a leadership that adapts in response to new information or circumstances, and is constant in being fair, generous, clear. And if clarity is yet to be found then with the humility to acknowledge it is still being sought.

Also greater acknowledgment of the value of good judgement that comes from longstanding experience and deep knowledge of one’s discipline. Expertise. In a world where it is easy for many to falsely claim they know it all, genuine expertise is critical.

And finally, I’ve learned not to conflate an uncomfortable or difficult discussion with a disrespectful or rude one. Whether in a design session or an HR one, frank and clear feedback is far more constructive and useful than ambivalent feedback in language so guarded that it is meaningless. Don’t leave recipients confused, leave them with enough clarity to empower them with agency to take next steps.

Who are you admiring now and why?

I admire people who are prepared to “call it out” and cop the personal abuse or detriment that follows. My colleague Philip Thalis, architect and former Councillor for the City of Sydney, continues to advocate for the benefit of the public realm despite knowing his outspokenness will sometimes prejudice his practice.

I also admire the advocates and catalysts for change especially around housing inequity, climate change, and First Nations recognition. Official and unofficial leaders who speak honestly, frankly, who offer a clarity on an issue and a way to address it and in ways that empower others to act. In Australia our major parties are losing support to a bevy of independents, many of whom are smart, competent, middle aged women who bring experience from successful careers, in sectors outside of formal politics.

What is the impact you’d like to have on the world? What is your core mission? And, what does success in that look like to you?

My mission is to leave behind a handful of buildings that endure, both materially and culturally. Too much architectural impact is measured, at least by architects, on ideas of perfection and precision in highly controlled circumstances. What we need is an elevation of the “pretty good” everyday building that will positively impact more people for more time. Get our hands dirty, in un-ideal circumstances.

Finally, what advice do you have for those starting their career? Would your advice be any different for women?

Those starting a career in architecture need to be reliable, technically capable, and good to be around. That’s the trifecta of a valued team member and architecture is a team event.

In 2013 I wrote 10 lessons for a Diverse Practice for a symposium at the Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, specifically in response to my experience as a woman architect. On reflection, I would now de-emphasize reliance on gender especially to presume that by virtue of their gender someone will demonstrate certain behaviors. I would now emphasize temperament over gender as a more useful guide to someone’s propensity to work effectively, respectfully, fruitfully with others. Over thirty-five years of practice I’ve experienced marvelous, kind and caring leadership from men and some appalling behavior from women, and vice versa as well of course. Don’t limit your expectation of someone according to what they represent rather than what they do, their actual behavior in response to a situation.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Impact on the Everyday: Kerstin Thompson on Thriving People, Thriving Practices, and Better Buildings