Australian Regional Building
Other Publications
A Middle Class Man: An Autobiography
Alistair Knox (1912-1986): modernism, environment and the spirit of place
Alistair Knox and the birth of environmental building in Australia
The Home Builder's Manual of Mud Brick Design and Construction
Housing grouped in rural setting
alistair knox : an integrated approach to landscape + architecture
House that Captures the Country's Soul
Hexagonal Design for Eltham House
Eltham the Mecca of Landscape Painters
With the Clay of Life, House and Land Are One
Author: Alistair Knox
Unpublished article
Chapter 1: The Background
The insularity of Australia during the nineteenth century produced indigenous style in writing, painting, and architecture. Twentieth-century mobility has given an international ... read more
Chapter 2: Greenway and Griffin
There have been only a few notable architects in Australia who are known by name. There are many who have created buildings of architectural character who are anonymous. Men ... read more
Chapter 3: The verandah
Greenway's special gifts of original proportion, relationships of space, and the other matters mentioned earlier set him aside from his contemporaries. But wherever building ... read more
Chapter 4: The Australian environment
Regional building is the art of creating structures that have a sense of inevitability and relationship to their environment. They are not sentimental. They express belief in ... read more
Chapter 5: The new suburbs
The outbreak of the First World War marked the end of the pioneering days. The old gave place to the new with startling rapidity. The present writer was two years old when ... read more
Chapter 6: A new world and a new architecture
The passion for a new mechanical way of life rather than the old manual way was partly a carryover from the tremendous mechanisation that occurred in every aspect of life during ... read more
Chapter 7: Mud brick
No regional designer can afford to overlook earth building as a medium. In the nineteenth century, with the exception of a few very large homesteads, this method was regarded as ... read more
Chapter 8: The councillors
Montsalvat mud brick. Photo: Alistair Knox
The well-known Artists' Colony at Eltham, under the direction of the ingenious and persuasive leadership of Justus Jorgensen, had ... read more
Chapter 9: Standard M.S. Method
The first stage of the Le Gallienne Downing house 1948
The best early houses I designed and built in earth were the Busst house and the first wing of the LeGallienne Downing ... read more
Chapter 10: The Pyke house
Looking back on the building and designing I have done since the war discloses a series of events that follow one another in a strange, systematic manner. I feel certain that ... read more
Chapter 11: New techniques
Building techniques started to change shortly after the war. Earth moving came of age. Hand tools were suddenly mechanically operated. The American armed forces brought a new ... read more
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