Baggy Pants and Butter Paper: The Process

This interview was originally published by Baggy Pants and Butter Paper, Issue Two: The Process, 22 June 2021. Below is an abridged version. You can find the full interview at https://baggypants.info/.

Baggy Pants and Butter Paper is edited by Hamish Besley.

Interview and editing by Hamish Besley

Last but not least we have Hamish Wilson. Unlike our other guests my relationship with Hamish (or Ham if we’re both in the room) started away from school, at a place just as important to one’s education, flat parties. Whether it’s staring at each other’s posters or pouring indian ink on our shoes (I still regret that) our nights since then have often involved something art related. We sat down to discuss a lot of things including how the shortcuts of undergrad are quickly quashed by masters and his technique of emotional abstraction that has become a signature style over the years.

Straight into it, what do you do?

Um, it’s hard to put a title on it I guess. What would you say your occupation is? My occupation is a student at architecture school and then my other occupation is also advertising, promotions, my own occupation because I guess I work for myself as well as making clothes. But yeah, it’s kinda hard to make a name for everything that I do. I guess it would just be a few things.

I would classify you as a designer. Whether it’s the buildings, the promotional material or the clothing there is a consistent element of designing in all of them. At least in all of them you employ a clear understanding of design fundamentals.

Yeah, that’s a good way to put it actually.

You’re clearly a multifaceted creative. But, I would draw the line of you being a designer because in all those areas you are clearly identifying (or being handed) a problem and constructing a solution targeted at a specific audience. So, what’s the transition from undergraduate architecture to studying a Master of Architecture?

For starters the workload is completely different, both in terms of the amount and the type. So the stuff that you’re working on now is becoming more relevant. It sort of surprises me that you can get work without knowing the things that we are learning, even in the first few weeks. Like the amount of useful, real word information that you learn is higher now than before. If that makes some sense. Another thing that changes is the professional stuff. When I was doing my bachelors the work that they were giving me was a lot less engaging. But now that I have a position in postgrad it’s opening up a lot more doorways.

Doorways in what sense?

Doorways of complexity. They’re trying to trust us with more stuff before we’re learning it. 

I guess, and this is what I’ve found with my masters, is that the tasks are less abstract, less hypothetical. You find more room to attack existing real world problems or tasks. 

Something that I found interesting was that my style is super abstract and conceptual, I don’t like grounding it and at the same time I’m battling with the fact that I am coming into practical work and that they don’t really cross over enough. At the moment I know because I have a little bit of practical experience that I’m not going to be able to use these skills for another 10 years at least. But then at the same time I want to prove, like I still want to use them still. But, I also still want to get practical. So it’s a weird thing to deal with.

That is a by-product of undergrad, going into masters. Knowing that you have to think in the real world and your approach that got you through undergrad is not guaranteed to hold up to those tests.

Design is super abstract at the moment and right up my alley, you know? Because it’s messy and textual. Whereas in architecture, our theory and practice are completely dense. Theory is not as relevant but practice is. It’s a strange contrast.

Because at the end of the day you are designing a building and there’s rules and regulations that you are bound by.

Yeah, exactly.

I mean because I was talking to Callum (a mutual friend) last night about this and we were saying that design and architecture are very much the same thing. They run on the same principles. That’s why there are such a number of famous designers that originally got their education in architecture. They teach very similar things and if anything architecture gives you a more rigorous training.

It sort of teaches you different things but that is still applicable. Like overload of work, quality over a short amount of time. It’s definitely helped with doing Drum & Bass advertising. Because like Jamie (Friend and DJ) has said before ‘you can pump out so much stuff in such a little amount of time” and that is because we’re so used to it.

That’s where your process comes in with the iteration approach. Hard and fast, let’s worry about the details later for now let’s get the jist out. Has this battle between your abstract approach and the real world requirements of the masters program had a tangible effect on your practice? If so, how?

One-hundred percent, It’s a struggle because you’re trying to find a way to think about structure in the back of your head because it’s something that you’re going to need to apply to it. Which is something that has never been relevant, like, arguably not even in third year. Right now they don’t want us to think about structure but, they’re going to hit us with it in the second trimester.

By structure what do you mean?

The fact that its (concept buildings) got to stand up and that it’s got to have occupation and that the spaces need to be to code.

It’s still got to have a function?

Exactly, basically not designing architecture where the people aren’t relevant. That’s definitely affected it in that sense.

Adding function into form?

Yeah, or at least trying to keep that wheel spinning in the back of my head. I guess as a summery answer it definitely changes the way in which you go about designing. Because you are thinking about it in a real world sense.

Is there a tangible example that you can give me?

I guess I’m starting with things like structural elements in a project before I’ve even thought about the design yet. It’s one of the biggest flaws you can do but, it’s also the way you pass the course for (architectural) design papers.

Is this what you’ve done in the past or are doing now?

It’s what I was doing in third year. I would tick the structural requirements and then fudged it a little bit at the end so it looked interesting.

But, that’s a ‘no no’?

Well they say that you shouldn’t let the structure dictate the design because at the end of the day it’s not design, it’s just a utilitarian building.

Is that what you are doing now?

Nah, I’m trying to transcend. Thinking about both of those parts of the work at the same time rather than one and then the other. I guess that’s the difference when you jump up. It’s something that you need to consider and because it’s not real can test the ideas a bit more. 

So, in terms of how masters has affected your practice, it has made you more aware of your practice as a whole. Because you have one area of your practice (the design) that you really enjoy and one (the structural and functional requirements) that you don’t enjoy as much. But, now you have to work out a way to balance both of them.

Exactly

What are you working on at the moment?

At the moment we (the class) are working on a film museum. It’s for a class called Narrative Architecture which talks about how you can derive a concept from a narrative. This is like deeper than a concept and you take something such as a passage from a poem and then each line represents a journey through the space. For mine I have proposed that there is a man on my site and it’s tracking around the director. Then that is where a curved wall has come from. And then that’s where the narrative has come from and you develop that. Going in deeper with more narratives.

Does that mean that narrative architecture is something that you are quite heavily interested in? Is it a big part of your practice?

I don’t know. It’s weird but I was more interested in the way the lecturer taught. Because there were heaps of different lecturers talking about certain designs and the way that he works is a way that I wanted to understand, as opposed to what he was teaching. It’s kinda confusing. But, I enjoyed his course which had narrative architecture in it last year. I decided that was something that I wanted to develop naturally. So you were interested in his process? Yeah, yeah exactly. He actually helped me get a job interview the other day.

I’d say there’s just as much to be learnt from a 2 hour tutorial as there is in 30 minutes with your lecturer.

For sure, for sure bro.

Go and book a meeting with them. I mean they may not want to talk to you. But unfortunately, it’s in their job description to do so. Regardless of if you get along or not. It’s something I’ve found moving into masters, you have a lot more connection with the lectures because you actually get to talk to them. Unlike in undergrad where they overlook everyone in the studio and direct their little students (tutors) to do the teaching for them.

Dude, and the stuff you learn from them is stuff you’ll never get in class.

Is there a particular skill, mental or physical, that you find helpful in your practice?

Definitely analogue expression. Being able to express any idea that I have through a sketch. It is basically like telling a thousand words with one drawing. But, it also shows different ways of looking at what I’m thinking about.

Another thing would be modeling because it’s quick, physical modelling or digital modelling. You can just iterate and pump those ideas out, just like the sketches. I guess it’s not a skill specific to me because it is easily obtabibly but I do find it useful.

Ironically butter paper and sketching is the best skill because you can just keep layering it. Even if you do the worst drawing possible if you keep doing the same drawing it’s better on each layer of paper.

Those are three really good skills. I’m particularly interested in the analogue expression, that to me is the trademark for what you do. How does that inform your practice?

It allows me to access atmosphere and emotion. If you use one media on its own it obviously has as many constraints as your hand can do. So if you’re an insane drawer you still have the constraints of your ability. But, if you add in another element, that is where atmosphere starts to come out of it.

Define atmosphere.

Atmosphere is the ephemeral quality that you can’t physically touch but you feel within the space. Like a really moody, dark room with a skylight. The darkness of charcoal or smudge pens can be used to represent that. It’s sort of mood or vibe or emotional abstraction.

Can you trace back the development of that style or is that just something that has always been there.

Well I guess it would start with drawing. Drawing has only been relevant to me after primary I think. I just found it to be a comforting medium. I couldn’t really read or write well as a kid so it was definitely something that I gravitated towards. And then because that was what I would be filling my writing books with it just developed from there. But then I didn’t pick up painting until the end of highschool, the end of year 12. That is where that atmosphere originated from, I got it from year 12 painting. I had to paint underwater and I didnt have any photographs so I had to imagine a lot more and I think that’s where it came from. Because I went from copying and tracing to imagining. Which I guess it would for anyone if they pushed their boundaries.