WHDA
WHDA Director Redmond Hamlett reflects on the business initiatives that have had the greatest impact on his practice – from securing a place on the State Government Construction Suppliers Register, to cultivating strong professional networks and winning award recognition in 2025.
WHDA has a small, permanent team of three, with head office in the Block Arcade, Melbourne. Staff also work remotely in Footscray, Warburton and Fitzroy.
In the spirit of reconciliation, we acknowledge the Traditional Owners of Country throughout Victoria and their continuing connection to land, waters and community, and this includes the Wurundjeri and Boon Wurrung peoples of the Kulin Nation where I live and work. I pay my respects to Elders past and present whose knowledge, traditions and stories guide custodianship on what will always be their ancestral lands, which was never ceded. It’s incumbent on us to do no harm and leave our built environment in a better place.
When was the practice established and what were its early ambitions? How has the practice evolved over time?
WHDA was incorporated in 2014, originally born out of my working partnership with Edward Woollan. When I signed on as a Director, we were based in a tiny office on Grey Street, St Kilda. We were mostly working on independent school start-up and grant application projects, heritage refurbishments and consultancies of all shapes and sizes. A few of these were pro-bono or low cost services, particularly for one Iraqi community group who wanted to start a school in a growth corridor. I’ve got lots of war stories about this project.
I was very driven to broaden our horizons to include a mix of private clients, but also more public-facing ones, including the state government and local governments. On a personal level this was out of a desire to grow the practice, grow our opportunities and explore how we can contribute to the built environment. I wanted to keep things interesting and varied. It’s quite important to work on a mix of projects, including scales and typologies, for your mental health.
After Edward retired, Douglas Wan joined as a Director in 2019. We made the strategic decision to have a Project Director (that’s me) and a Design Director (that’s him). We see ourselves as consultants within the practice, each bringing distinct but aligned expertise.
Having a trusted colleague alongside me – someone who shares a similar ethos while offering a different skillset – was a breakthrough. We can share roles and responsibilities, make professional judgments together, and refine our focuses. Our clients are onboard with this approach as it’s structured and they get fantastic results.
We have grown and diversified our skillset, unlocking some incredible opportunities, including consulting to the state government’s Victorian School Building Authority (VSBA) capital works programs on Primary and Specialist School projects.
In a kind of roundabout way, the practice has come back to be focused on education, community and residential projects – which is what we initially wanted when the practice first formed.
What is the practice philosophy?
This is my elevator doorstop statement, and it hasn’t really changed in 12 years.
WHDA is a people-focused architectural practice.
WHDA exists to serve the public good – that’s why we practise.
WHDA specialises in community and education projects. Through our design skills, we try to see the world through the eyes of our clients to advocate for common sense solutions to complex problems.
When you work with WHDA, we listen.
WHDA embraces collaboration with all our project partners. We all have a role to play.
When you work with WHDA, what you see is what you get.
Ok, so what about design? I would say we exist in a current context of being responsive to our urban environment, attempting to respond to our Australian cultural milieu (broad as it may be) and our temperate climate. We make the best use of materials and systems in a finite-resource world in an ongoing project of modernism. It all comes back to architecture as space for human life, and that’s it.
Can you tell us about a key project or business initiative that provided a turning point in the life of the practice?
The best business initiative that we did was to get on the State Government Construction Suppliers Register (the VIC CSR) back in 2018, which later led to being on the Education Technical Advice (later Construction Suppliers Panel). For the effort and training required to do this, it’s the most transformative action hands down. Upon reflection I agree with the huge emphasis that government clients place on safety, including workplace safety, safety in design and constructability. We still use the learnings from this experience today when we “red pen” our projects.
I can honestly say that being on the VIC CSR reignited our practice. Without those project opportunities I wouldn’t be passing this message onto all of you today.
The second-best business initiative is staying collegiate, and by that I mean nurturing your tribal network. This has been a very good source of work, but also of professional acumen. If you ever need to “phone a friend”, it’s fantastic to have a few go-to colleagues, former work-wives and work-husbands (and don’t forget the ones who you share an office space with!). You don’t know where the advice will take you. It is important to make the time to stay in contact, have coffee, share problems and opportunities.
The other one was getting off Hi Pages. While we did get some good projects through this, it created a massive time sink. Upon reflection we needed to develop better ways to screen real clients. As an industry we need to be better at educating the value of our services to the consuming public, so there isn’t any misinterpretation on what we do, or our value. It’s important to vet your prospective clients and even get them to commit to something – anything on your terms is a good start to setting a relationship and trying to assess how much ambition they have for their own project.
A key project for us is the Swan Hill Specialist School. We started this project back in 2021, originally as a Master Plan and the Stage 1 Outdoor Multicourt project. On the back of this, the Department of Education engaged us to continue with the Stage 2 Main Classroom Building additions and alterations. We recently got nominated for the ‘ArchDaily Building of the Year 2026’ awards program, for our Swan Hill Specialist School project.
Taking the “plunge” to meet the requirements of the state’s largest client taught us invaluable lessons that we could implement across the practice – architectural practice techniques, client engagement and stakeholder consultation, construction systems and environmental design strategies. The planning is simple; the architecture is quite restrained and draws heavily on its context; and the construction techniques and systems are not that challenging, because of the limited access to trades in regional Victoria. But the thinking behind the project planning and implementation is quite detailed and nuanced – for us it’s a proof of concept for our design methodology and practice systems.
We stretched a modest budget about as far as it could go. Meeting the kids and staff and seeing how they respond and use our project has been one of the most rewarding practice experiences. I hope there are of more of these opportunities soon.
What have been the biggest challenges and successes in recent years?
Our biggest success was our awards tilt in 2025, coming home with one award and two commendations in the VSBA, ArchiTeam and Learning Environments VicTas awards.
We have extremely happy clients in our VSBA projects. It’s a great feeling when you catch up with them and they tell you how well everything is going – this feeling reminds you that you’ve done something good for your clients, and it’s where you need to be.
In fact, visiting the opening day events and shaking hands with local MPs cutting the ribbon, might be cliched but when you are part of something like this, it really warms the cockles of your heart.
The biggest challenge is winning work – no surprise, as all practices face this. I would like to see more local government agencies move towards a risk tender assessment model rather than placing a priority on price, as I feel a lot of practices buy work and drive down the market value of our services. At the same time, the cost of doing business (hiring and paying staff well) goes up with inflation.
What are some of the most important business lessons you have learned?
An easy one is to bill small, bill often and divide up your services in a logical flow.
Persist if you can – architecture takes a long time.
Not every project will be perfect, and not every project matches your own architectural ambition – but that doesn’t mean there are not opportunities to use your design skills to improve the lives of clients.
Try to maintain a healthy work-life balance. I work late if I have to or if I’m having fun. Otherwise, evenings and weekends are for life and living. Read Andrew Maynard’s article on work-life balance. For me, outside of family and friends, it’s practising Jiu Jitsu, being part of community and being healthy. That was transformative for me too.
Nurture your tribal network (really important) – see above.
What are the biggest issues involved in running the practice in 2026?
Winning work (as above)… Maybe this is an especially Victorian challenge, but my current experience is that a lot of us are “waiting” for another public works boom, and not just in health and transport infrastructure.
Interest rates being higher for longer has also affected the private sector, and inflation rising hasn’t helped.
At the time of writing, there is a question mark on the future of the ARBV and where it sits within the Public Service. There are others (Paul Viney) who are better at talking to this issue specifically, but having some certainty about where our profession sits and how it will be regulated is important. As a practitioner my immediate concern is if there is a de-professionalisation of the profession (like we have seen overseas).
I think we should make a big effort to take back a lot of the services, particularly contract administration. While I understand that some very large scale infrastructure projects need separate PM and design teams, I would suggest that procurement (including tendering and administering a contract) is a core architectural service, and where possible we should have every opportunity to do this. Our role isn’t just design; it’s advice, end-to-end whole of life services, a professional service that juggles art, context, science, technology, environment, regulations and risk.
Have you read that quote by Manfredo Tafuri describing architects as “gymnasts in the prison yard”? At times it can feel like that (and a slow industry with hyper competition makes it feel like there isn’t even a yard to stretch in, let alone do cartwheels).
How has technology impacted on how you conduct business?
In a transformative way! We’ve been doing work-from-home and hybrid work since 2014. In many ways without technology and team apps like Slack, Trello, MS Teams, Zoom, Mural and Google Apps, we would really struggle to run our practice and our team coherently. Most of our work is in regional Victoria and we rely on tech working for us.
Let’s face it, when you work you also have a life and it’s important to nurture this too. We would struggle to work in the office full-time, and I think most no-collar workers expect some level of hybrid work. Dropping and picking up children from school and having activities in the evening ain’t that easy if you are expected to be 9–5 face to face all the time. The lockdown era opened the floodgates for work-life balance, and for this I’m glad.
In terms of AI, I see it as most effective as a tool for proofing and checking work, rather than as a generator of work or ideas – though some colleagues would disagree. I’m yet to be convinced that it can substitute for human judgment. Building is a political act. It expresses the values of a society and the ambitions of a client, and that requires a humanist sensibility, not a purely technical, purist one.
How do you market your practice?
I wish we were better at this, that’s for sure!
We occasionally get published, or are asked to do interviews so we take these sorts of opportunities seriously.
I do a bit of business to business networking; while not always a steady source of work, it’s good to keep tabs on other industries and professions. I treat networking with other architects a little bit like marketing.
Douglas my business partner had a great idea – share what we do online in a semi-regular way. I took this further. “Dare to participate” was one of my late Professor Richard Norton’s mantras, so I’ve been giving this a red-hot go, particularly on LinkedIn, Instagram and on our own website. Sometimes it’s a long-form essay. Most of the time it’s just quick observations on our work and industry trends more broadly.
How important are design competitions and awards in raising awareness of your work?
We see awards and design competitions as good opportunities to participate in the profession, both to share and see what everyone else is working on and trialling as part of their practice. It’s a bit of a celebration. We are a small practice, and in some ways participating levels the exposure and media field (as the internet doesn’t differentiate the size and reach of your practice when your entries are highlighted). While winning an award is definitely something to celebrate, entries can be a lot of work. For our office, we place an emphasis on good value, good architecture and social sustainability, so awards are a “sometimes” activity. When we have a particularly strong project, we give it a red hot go. If nothing else it makes for a good story on LinkedIn, Instagram or speaking at the universities – and letting your clients know as well (who might like to tell the local paper or host a community day on the back of it).
I think awards programs should place a much higher emphasis on human stories, human outcomes and social sustainability, rather than solely focus on design or environmental sustainability, which often skews the outcome. The planning of a building should be high on the assessment criteria followed by detailing, construction systems or specific “design” bent. We have found sustainability hard to measure, and sometimes feels like “greenwashing”, even though our sustainable design principles are sound. So, unless your clients place a value on measuring performance, measuring and evidencing sustainability often gets left behind or is an afterthought.
Recently we were nominated for the ArchDaily Building of the Year 2026. We certainly didn’t apply for this one, but because we are in it, we are happy to participate without any expectations about anything.
What are the ambitions for the practice?
We aim to maintain faithfulness for why we are in practice, and never lose sight of this.
Do you know the classic Japanese folklore tale of “Issun-boshi – the one inch boy”? We don’t necessarily want to be “bigger”, just seen as “less small”. We would love to be able to grow to around six to seven staff, and maybe include another Director and Business Manager to further develop our business model.
Education is a core interest of the practice, and we’ll keep refining this. If the state will have us, we’d love to continue working on VSBA projects, and move into the Kindergarten on School Sites (KOSS) projects. We’d also like to work on more projects in regional Victoria, particularly on the border between Victoria and New South Wales.
We would love to work on more independent school projects and do more for public clients, including working on Early Learning, Maternal Child Health, Community Halls and Public Sports and Recreation. Working on Social Housing or Aged Care also would suit our practice ethos and previous work experience of the Directors.
We would also like to offer more partial services in the form of architectural and design advice, particularly for private clients. The reality is that most households cannot afford full services architecture – but that doesn’t mean that they’re not making changes to their homes. Offering our expertise in “bite-sized” pieces could make our services more accessible while delivering meaningful improvements in design and build quality.
How long have you been a member of the ACA?
About three years. I had been attending a few of the CPDs through the ArchiTeam member discount before that.
What do you see are the main benefits of membership?
Being part of a membership organisation that is clear about its raison d’etre – the business of architectural practice. There are some wonderful practice tools available, including the contract forms and the time/cost calculator. I’ve really enjoyed the CPDs and conferences, and I’m looking forward to either attending these, or even presenting at them one day.
I’ve also really enjoyed the face-to-face events. They are quite social and relaxed – and excellent value. I’d recommend that members go along if they can.
Another major benefit is the ACA’s representation of architects to all levels of government, which is one of the association’s real strengths. I’ve been impressed by the work of Paul Viney and the Victorian team, who engage in this advocacy and volunteer work purely to strengthen our profession. It’s genuinely inspiring, and I hope to contribute to this type of policy and advocacy work if I can.
Being a national industry body, the ACA gives confidence to members around the country – not just those of us who are based in Melbourne, Victoria. It’s one of the motivating reasons for our practice to stay members. It’s important to have a seat at the table with state government agencies and federal ministers on building compliance and NCC changes, Australian Standards, energy efficiency, supply chain, standards of education and CPD for our profession. It’s critical that the procurement of our services is fair and equitable, not only strengthening our profession, but improving built outcomes for the public.
Also, the ACA appears to be transparent. I might not read every newsletter but I know that I can get a reasonable handle on what is happening in my state at any one time.