Archefusion Studio
Archefusion was started in 2004 by Andrew White. It is a passionate young studio that values model making, beautiful drawings and innovative environmental techniques. Each project is a jamming session, it is about process & relationships. We deeply value collaboration with our clients.
We intend to produce 'real architecture'. Real architecture captures the future as much as the primordial past. It is an architecture carefully balanced and inclusive of all of the wonderful forces that help to see a building materialize and evolve from concept to concrete. Real architecture is original and innovative, of its time in the 21st century and futuristic with a degree of warmth formed by place and the people that inhabit and breathe life into it.
Archefusion Theory
Archefusion is about fusing archetypes. Archetype is a Jungian term for any number of prototypic phenomena (eg. The wise old man, the tower) which form the symbolic content of the collective unconscious assumed to reflect universal human thought found in all cultures. Archetypes are particular forms & images that resonate and awaken or manifest clusters of energy within the collective unconscious. These forms are primordial and numinous, or infinitely varied but Jung discovered certain typologies or enduring forms within the unconscious that were universal and these he called Archetypes.
Archefusion is a term invented to try and explain and comprehend Jorn Utzon's Sydney Opera House and Walter Burley Griffin's Newman College. It is a retroactive manifesto which concluded that the Sydney Opera House is a wholistic alchemy of fused archetypes; a Mayan Pyramid (mound or earth), an Islamic Dome (orb of the sky, deconstructed) and a major & a minor theatre (moon & sun or fire & water). This study pointed me in the direction of archetypes as a methodology for creating exhilarating forms.
The staircase to the light, the boat as an extravert symbol of journey or adventure, the den as an introverted shelter, the gathering area within the primordial forest, the serpentine village street and the wholistic alchemy of earth, fire, air, water, are all archetypes explored at Archefusion.
Archefusion investigates architectural archetypes fused within the context of Australia in the 21st Century. The intent of the investigation is to create architecture that is memorable and soulful.
Andrew White has worked with Norman Foster, Zaha Hadid, Gregory Burgess and Denton Corker Marshall, amongst other architects. He graduated with honours from Melbourne University in 1998 and has 14 years practical experience in the architecture profession working on a wide variety of projects from detailed fitouts, to skyscrapers, theatres and concert halls. He was inspired to study architecture at the age of 16 when he saw a photograph of Antoni Gaudi's Sagrada Familia in a newspaper article. Andrew has tutored and lectured at Deakin University in Geelong. He started Archefusion in 2004.