Vacation Premises

Having masterminded Brisbane’s Calile Hotel, architects Ingrid Richards and Adrian Spence turned their focus to their own resortlike oasis.

- Elle McClure

Now heading up a 10-strong design firm responsible for some of the most exciting bricks-and-mortar happenings in the state, Ingrid Richards and Adrian Spence met as architecture undergrads at The University of Queensland. It wouldn’t be until years later that they crossed paths again, at a Sydney Dance Company performance in their home town of Brisbane. Both dance buffs, they later competed in a dancing competition together. “There was a lift. We won,” Spence says.

They each practised with large architecture firms for about a decade, before they came together to establish the eponymous firm Richards & Spence in 2008. Having now been partners in both work and life for more than 10 years, they’re highly attuned, creatively. “Nothing leaves the office without our shared endorsement,” Spence says. “If either of us is not happy with the design then it’s not the right answer.” They say their passion for what they do leaves them with no reason to try to separate the personal from the professional. “We have only one rule,” he adds. “No work chat in bed.”

It’s a directive that’s served them well. Their company has a burgeoning portfolio, largely projects that, while private commissions, are intended to be readily utilised by the public. “We felt there was an opportunity to improve the public realm,” Richards explains. This tendency towards democratising good design has manifested in several buzzy retail and restaurant openings, but also an elevated take on Brisbane Airport’s International Terminal, a Catholic primary school and even a local sports ground. The latter, Wests rugby club, has been dubbed “the Colosseum of Toowong” by locals for the Roman-inspired brick archways that now tower over it.