For as long as I can remember, I've always been curious. I love to create in my mind
and in reality so architecture was ultimately the right fit, but I was supposed to be a scientist.
And honestly it took me a while to find my feet. But I grew into it.
I started to understand its potential to have an impact and in time to have impact at scale;
not just design buildings and spaces, but improve lives through our interventions, to pursue better
and chart the course to make it. I'm Dino Vrynios, architect and director at Das Studio.
In all facets of life, I set high standards myself and have generally been able to deliver at high
output levels. The product of this is a gradual stretching of capacity just like a road band.
But even a rubber band has its limits and in the winter of 2017 I well and truly reached
that point. Sara, my wife and co-director at Das Studio and I were both working at large practices
here in Adelaide, on the pathway to leadership at our respective firms.
We're also spending a lot of time travelling and working on projects inter-state.
In my year, my grandmother, her house had just burnt down, and I took on responsibility of
looking after her and managing the estate on behalf of the family. So one Thursday morning
after my weekly red-eye flight to Sydney, I had a complete physical and mental breakdown.
I collapsed it it triggered what has been the scariest period of my life.
My brain hit reset and for the first time in my life I was not in control.
This wake-up call with my mental health caused Sara and I to re-evaluate our lives.
We wanted greater flexibility and better balance,
to create an environment where we could do what we love but with greater control.
And so in 2018 Das Studio was born. Sara took the leap and I joined her just over a year later,
working from the front bedroom of our home.
Look, I won't lie, it's it's scary when you have a mortgage, limited clients,
and uncertainty when the next invoice is going to be paid. But we found a way. The opportunity to
take our learnings from a decade of practice and hone into a version of how we want it to operate.
Early in our careers we cut our teeth designing bespoke residential projects.
Delivering homes for people is how we develop our baseline understanding of
making spaces. So we started small, designing new homes and additions.
We're creating environments and making people's lives better... one family at a time.
And with each passing day began feeling more comfortable with the path we were making.
We were enjoying ourselves working together we restored balance in our lives.
But then something started to happen. Slowly but surely some
different opportunities were presenting themselves and we began asking the question
do we want to focus solely on residential architecture and impact the lives of a few
or take these opportunities and impact the lives of many. Earlier in my career I was awarded the
Jack Hobbs McConnell Travelling Fellowship in Architecture by the SA Chapter of the
Institute to research world's best practice in pre-fabrication and modular construction.
With what I experienced in Europe and on a delegation in china with industry and
political leaders from South Australia. I began to understand that architects think differently about
the world. On my return to Australia I embarked on a period of intense exploration and agency.
Our luxury regional tourism venture, Esca, was developed as one of the demonstrators of these
learnings. Fast forward to September 2019 Das's now team of five were presented with
the opportunity to deliver a pilot modular project for the South Australian Department for Education.
Three weeks later this one project evolved into a 12 school program valued at $50 million. This
was a big decision for us to make. To commit to something at this scale opened up a range of
new financial and operational considerations but ultimately the chance to have a positive impact.
In the space of three months we grew to 12 and now a team of 18 incredible architects,
interior designers, and landscape architects based out of our studio in the Adelaide CBD.
Two years on, having navigated the challenges presented by growing a business during a global
pandemic, these projects have all been delivered and used by thousands of students in Adelaide and
regional centers around the state. The program expanded to include a further 16 schools,
which were then divested to other architects and consultants with new contractors coming on board
to develop capabilities in the modular and prefab space. This was impact at scale. MDLR became a
vehicle created with our business partners Esca to test these ideas for other applications.
Regional health was an obvious one so I wrote a paper banged on some doors and the Royal Flying
Doctor Service decided to take a chance on us. Together we delivered a game-changing
piece of health infrastructure in Marree, a town of 100 people located 800 kilometres due
north of Adelaide, on some of the most remote country on this continent. We were starting
to demonstrate how we can deliver outcomes that were a departure from business-as-usual thinking.
We've been able to build momentum around this approach: that there is always another way,
if you create space for new ideas.
And now we're starting to partner with like-minded organisations and institutions and providing us
the opportunity to create projects that support intergenerational scale endeavors across all
tiers of education, manufacturing technology, and space. Maybe I'll be a scientist, after all.
I do have to pinch myself at times and take a moment to appreciate what we have achieved in
the past four years and those that have been trusted and supported us. But you know what?
I enjoy the responsibility of our projects and the team of people who have joined us in this journey.
I've always been a leader that gives away power. I believe this is important because it ensures
that good ideas are part of a common agenda rather than expression of a single person.
It allows a good idea to have many champions and allows for adoption without difficulty.
This is what I have endeavoured to do every day within the professional realms I operate
and the broader communities I'm part of. Through deliberate and
strategic participation, I seek out the opportunity to contribute
to share knowledge and positively influence those around me to create environments
where big ideas can grow. Someone once described it to me as activism by stealth. Kind of stuck.
Through the decisions we make every day as architects we have a greater ability than most to
have an impact and this is a huge responsibility. But it's also a privileged position. So
we should strive for better. Better processes, better relationships, better outcomes. We should
respectfully challenge convention and not be afraid to ask if the way it is the way it should
be. We should be generous with our time and with each other because giving is better than taking.
Architects and makers. Makers of spaces, makers of solutions,
makers of joy, making a difference to make every day better, so...
Let's make better.