Clare Design: Works 1980-2015 edited by Haig Beck and Jackie Cooper
ORO Editions, 2015
Paperback, 272 pages

A quick glance at the cover of the new monograph on the Australian architecture firm Clare Design reveals three letters that seem to be out of place: UME. To those unfamiliar with architectural publishing Down Under, this might appear to be code for something, but actually it is the magazine of Haig Beck and Jackie Cooper, editors of the monograph on Queensland, husband-and-wife architects Lindsay and Kerry Clare. This is a good thing, since UME, as I see it at least, has put together some of the best publications on architects, especially the 2003 monograph on Glenn Murcutt, which I unpacked earlier today. Beck and Cooper's books are heavy on drawings ? be they hard-line plans, sections, elevations and the like, or freehand sketches ? so they are a delight to read, both visually and through their writing and that of the architects and other contributors.
Although I was not familiar with Clare Design when a review copy of the monograph made its way to my doorstep, they are definitely a firm I can appreciate. Akin to Murcutt and other Aussie architects, such as Gabriel Poole, with whom they worked before starting their own firm in 1979, their buildings are idiosyncratic yet strongly rooted in their sites. Their buildings harness the qualities of their locales (sun, climate, views, culture, etc.) to become natural fits and exude the sustainability label....