Tim Ross

This podcast is proudly presented by the Australian Institute of Architects, the voice for Australia's built environment and the designers who shape it.

It's a dimmer that doesn't dim.

Do you know what it is?

It's a touchscreen from a car.

That's what they put on the side of the bed.

It's a lovely, lovely hotel in every respect.

In the car, I go to turn the heating temperature down, and instead I'm adjusting the suspension in the middle of the motorway because you can't get any sense of where your fingers are going, and you'd crash.

And it's similar here.

If you're lying in bed and you want to just turn the little side nightlight off,

The blinds start going up and the windows start opening and then you're in kind of full song and dance mode with the lighting.

Yeah, even better than just an ordinary switch is a toggle switch.

The toggle switch, I once demonstrated how easy it was to use a toggle switch while carrying a laundry basket full of clothes and a tray with some tea on it and a teapot.

And you balance it all on top and you're carrying it through and you're going through the doorway and you can use either your elbow to turn the light on or off or your nose.

With a toggle switch, which you can't do that with an ordinary switch.

And you certainly can't do it with a bloody car heads-up display crap bollocks thing like that over there.

I expect more actually from John because he's a man who... Critique time.

John, I expect more.

He's a man who celebrates and loves craft, who loves the tactile and loves the analogue, who is in love with craftsmanship and has an amazing relationship with probably hundreds of makers.

And so his own personal taste in architecture is extremely traditional, actually.

He's interested in tactility, texture, materiality, and using very, very simple materials that tell you where they're from, like broken bits of clay and...