Life beyond Radford

I have a wonderful family - my wife Angela and two girls Siena and Eva who both attend Radford Junior School.

I am director of a Canberra based architecture firm - Stewart Architecture - and we undertake projects throughout ACT and NSW. Additionally I undertake some residential property development - generally townhouse and apartment developments.

And I am fortunate to be part of the team that has completed the Radford College Master Plan and is now working on the new generation of buildings across the campus - very exciting!

Aside from family activities I love mountain biking (mainly in the Brindabellas and other national parks) and old classic cars. And I am almost ashamed to say I also love gardening...

I definitely wanted to be a car designer.

Year 9 camp and subsequently the Duke of Edinburgh Award (where a small group of us used to go on 5 day mountain bike rides into the bush) really got me interested in the exploring the outdoors and researching the history of the mountains around the ACT.

And more importantly - chunions. They were the 20 cent pizza-like creations available at the canteen each day. They were best slightly soft and undercooked. I still try to recreate them to this day...

As an architect I learnt a huge amount from my Radford technical drawing teacher Phil Stroh. The drawing skills I developed under Mr Stroh's guidance were not taught at University so I was well ahead in that regard and today still rely as much on the drawing board as the computer (which is quite rare but very beneficial because you actually think carefully about every line you draw). Additionally Mr Stroh maintained a nice learning environment - relaxed and humorous - and he drove a cool classic car.

Once I had realised that there were too few opportunities in Australia for car design (and I didn't really want to leave Australia) architecture was a logical alternative.