Architect-Urbanist: House and Habitat in the Work of Ian McKay

Ian David McKay (1932–2015), architect-urbanist and environmental designer, contributed to the domestic architecture of New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory across all scales from the 1960s to the 1980s. The single-family detached house was central to McKay’s career but it also contributed to his being frequently labelled as a member of the so-called Sydney School, the regionalist architectural style that proliferated around the Sydney area from the late 1950s to the late 1970s. Discussion of the Sydney School has focused mostly on the design of individual houses rather than on broader issues of habitat, which actually constituted McKay’s primary interest. McKay’s intellectual complexity and his concerns for the spatial and societal problems of human habitat developed following his participation in the 1956 CIAM X meeting in Dubrovnik and his encounters with Dutch architect Jaap Bakema. Through writing and practice, McKay explored the relationships between human habitation, architecture, and urban form, searching through design for a better human habitat for his fellow Australians. This paper reassesses McKay’s personal experiences, writings, and built works to illuminate a previously overlooked and undiscussed complexity to his career.