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(MvS) is a globally recognised architectural practice based in Melbourne. It was founded by architects Paul Minifie and Jan van Schaik in 1999. The firm has now 8 staff working under the two directors and is recognised for its advanced capabilities in computer aided design, building information modelling and digital fabrication. MvS has received multiple awards for numerous projects from the Australian Institute of Architects and have been the recipient of the Premiers Design Award in both 2008 and again in 2012.

Architectural Style

Minifie Van Schaik (MVS Architects) are led by Paul Minifie and Jan Van Schaik. Their work is applied locally in Victoria, and on a national and global scale, on a workshop and project basis, adapting to local conditions and specific client briefs.

The principals are noted for espousing two distinct and philosophically diverse streams of architecture, yet meeting in a synergistic blend. Jan Van Schaik brings to the practice a focus on digital technologies and fabrication, advanced architecture, speculative design, and urban morphology. Additionally, Paul Minifie contributes to the firm a focus on cross-pollination through the arts, and the nature of architecture as expressed through cultural and civic design.

The firm’s award winning built projects highlight the connection through these two different design ideologies and styles resulting in architectural synergy, and work through architectural discourse. The Australian Wildlife Health Centre is one example of this, acknowledging that even “wildlife” exists in an environment that is not wild but rather thoroughly conditioned by human technology.” Such a program acknowledges that “this programmatic engagement with non-human subjects signals the philosophical inversion that centers the building: man as idealized creature atop a “natural” hierarchy is recast so that man becomes an ordinary member of creature classes that are integrated into complex adaptive formations.”

Personal Life

Paul Minifie

Paul Minifie is a highly recognised and published architect based in Melbourne, Australia. After beginning his career at Ashton Raggatt McDougall and working under Howard Raggatt as a design architect for 10 years, Mr Minifie co-founded Minifie van Schaik (partners with Jan Van Schaik) in 1999 (originally Minifie Nixon Architects). Some of Mr Minifie’s key award winning projects include the Centre for Ideas at the VCA, the Australian Wildlife Centre at Healesville Sanctuary and the Edithvale Seaford Wetlands Discovery Centre.

Minifie completed a Masters degree in urban design and a PhD in applied architecture through RMIT and partakes annually as a judge in the AIA awards process across a range of categories. As an alumni of RMIT Mr Minifie is a continuing teacher and is an associate Professor of advanced architecture at RMIT (2000-present). He is the founding academic of the Spatial Information Architecture Laboratory at RMIT University and teaches both globally and locally across a vast scope of fields including climate change, globalisation, urbanisation/urban morphology and computational design. These teaching areas are closely linked to his own research in generative design methods and speculative urban futures; as modeled by Agent Systems and Truth and Beauty.

Jan van Schaik

Jan Van Schaik is an award winning architect and a director of MVS Architects. He has worked as an external examiner for architecture departments in a number of universities such as Deakin University, the University of Maryland, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Westminster, the University of Michigan and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Mr Schaik also works with the World Architecture Workshop, a collaborative research and teaching project between academics and professionals operating in France, Japan, Spain, China and the United States with the purpose of incorporating professional and institutional knowledge to decipher complex urban problems. Jan Van Schaik lectures both Bachelor and Masters students at RMIT University, where he himself achieved first class honours in Architecture and is currently a PHD candidate.

Jan Van Schaik is also heavily involved in the local Melbourne community as chair of the Melbourne City Council Creative Spaces Working Group. Some of his noteworthy projects include the Victorian College of the Arts, The Australian Wildlife Health Centre in the Healesville Sanctuary and the Edithvale Seaford Wetlands Discovery Center for Melbourne Water. In 2014 Mr Schaik joined a practice based research project examining the semiotics of the built environment which draws on collective perceptions of civic spaces.

Key Projects

Edithvale Seaford Wetlands Discovery Centre

The Edithvale Seaford Wetlands Discovery Centre is located in Edithvale Seaford in Melbourne. Constructed in 2006-2011, the building has received several awards including a Master Builders Association Award in August 2012, an Australian Institute of Architects award for Public Architecture in June 2012 and the Premier's Design Award in September 2012. The intention of this building is for its occupants to interpretatively gain an understanding of the vital and complex history and function of this urban wetland, specifically its role in the Water Cycle.

Visitors can watch the abundant bird life below undetected through a leaning curtain wall. Additionally, the trapezoid ground plan creates a number of corners, angles and interior-exterior sight lines for exploration. The exterior presents in contrast beak-like gable ends, a slung suspended roof lines and a large proportion of the external cladding demonstrates a pachydermatous concrete panel system. Bulbous tapered table-leg columns provide support for the underside of the building an evidently the gallery space inside.

Australian Wildlife Health Centre

Badger Creek Rd, Healesville, Victoria, 3777, Australia

The Australian Wildlife Health Centre was constructed at Healesville Victoria in 2007. It was awarded the William Wardel Institutional Architecture Award in 2006, and in 2008 the Premiers Design Award. This building allows visitors to interact with the activities of a Veterinary hospital. The building holds an operating theatre, laboratory and examination room, all of which are only sectioned off with glass walls. This allows people visiting the facility to visually witness all of the procedures in operation all the while the hospital still maintains the necessary protection needed to function. Additionally the vet in the laboratory can communicate verbally to the people watching and increasing a knowledge and awareness of wildlife. In the main gallery above eye level, the surface of the ceiling is a formalized mathematical concept known as costa surface its used to embellish Minfie Van Schaiks interest in combining mathematics and architecture. In order to eliminate the need for mechanical cooling in the public library MvS have used the central ventricle to function as a passive ventilation duct.

Victorian College of the Arts Centre for Ideas

The Victorian College of the Arts Centre for ideas was a building constructed in 2000 for Melbourne University. It was awarded in 2004 the Australian Institute of Architects prize for Best New Institutional Building. The Centre functions as teaching and office spaces and a library. The primary motivation behind this design was to represent movement from the virtual into reality. Minifie van Schaik conveyed this decision through the gradients of colour on the public stairs and external canopy. Additionally they maintained their drive through the choice of a stainless steel facade that is textured and reflective.

Digital modeling software, specifically a computer modelling algorithm that can calculate the voronoi tessalation of a plane was used to design the complex differentiated intersecting conical facade surfaces. the complex play of repetition and difference was established by creating single-curvature surfaces through the flattening of the cones which were then laid out as single two dimensional panels. The curved cladding surfaces meet at and mark the corner of the building as a prominent figured edge. On the side elevation they interface with the striated banding of orthogonal panels and deep excised windows that cut across and through the exterior of the volume, gaining compositional intensity from the over-running and juxtaposition of different systems.

• Key Projects
• 
  Edithvale Road, Edithvale, Victoria, 3196, Australia]]
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  Badger Creek Rd, Healesville, Victoria, 3777, Australia]]
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  234 St Kilda Rd, Southbank, Victoria, Australia]]
• 
  234 St Kilda Rd, Southbank, Victoria, Australia]]

Project lists

• Alice Smith School, KL
• RMIT New Academic Street, Melbourne
• Hero Lobby Upgrade, Melbourne
• Dehan Hotel City, Tianjin
• Star Voyager, ACMI
• Super-Yacht City, Qinhuangdao
• Wattle Avenue House, Mildura
• Emoh Ruo, London / Mildura
• Eastern Park & Geelong Botanical Gardens Vistor’s Centre
• Cafe Bourgeois, Melbourne Docklands
• About Face, 2009 Think Brick Competition
• 59a Bourke Street, Melbourne
• Apartment 905, Melbourne
• The New Harbour Esplanade, Melbourne Docklands
• Palm Deira Corniche, Dubai
• Sugar Station Confectionery chain, Melbourne
• Carlton Brewery Development, Melbourne
• Australian Wildlife Centre, Healesville Sanctuary, Melbourne
• Entrance Pavilion, Melbourne
• Wetlands Discovery Centre, Edithvale, Victoria
• Vietnamese Cultural & Community Centre, Maribyrnong
• Valley Lake EcoHousing, Niddrie
• Sustainable Housing (International Competition, Finalist)
• City of Skyscrapers (Competition, Winner), Ljublana
• Saatchi & Saatchi, Lobby/Gallery, Sydney
• Millennium Hilton Ballroom & Function Centre, Bangkok
• Millennium Hilton Health Club, Bangkok
• Deakin University Courtyard, Burwood
• OverLogo Installation, Melbourne
• Melbourne University Museum Courtyard, Melbourne
• Victorian College of the Arts Centre for Ideas, Melbourne
• Victorian College of the Arts Library, Melbourne
• Victorian College of the Arts Union Facilities & Cafeteria, Melbourne
• Docklands Design Frameworks, Vic Harbour, Yarra Waters and North West Precincts, Melbourne
• University of Sydney Public Domain (Competition, Finalist) Sydney
• Grand Egyptian Museum (Competition, Exhibited), Egypt
• Shuishe Waterfront Park (Competition) Taiwan
• Yantai Coal Economic College (Competition, Finalist) China
• Yarra’s Edge Windscreens, (Competition, Finalist) Melbourne
• Marina Line Underground Railway (Competition, Finalist) Singapore
• RMIT University Student Hub, Melbourne
• RMIT University Media Centre & Union Facilities, Melbourne

Awards and Honors

• 2012 Premier's Design Award

Edithvale Seaford Wetlands Discovery Centre

• 2012 Master Builders Association - Excellence in Construction Award Victoria

Best Sustainable Energy Project Edithvale Seaford Wetlands Discovery Centre

• 2012 Australian Institute of Architects award, New Public Architecture

Edithvale Seaford Wetlands Discovery Centre

• 2012 Australian Institute of Architects award Residential Alterations and Additions

Wattle Avenue House

• 2008 Premiers Design Award for Cultural Architecture

Australian Wildlife Healthcare Centre

• 2007 Carlton Brewery Redevelopment Competition, Winner
• 2006 Royal Australian Institute of Architects William Wardell Institutional Architecture Award Australian Wildlife Healthcare Centre
• 2005 City of Skyscrapers International Competition, second place
• 2004 Royal Australian Institute of Architects Institutional Architecture Award Victorian College of the Arts Centre for Ideas
• 2003 University of Sydney Public Domain International Design Competition, Finalist
• 2003 RAIA/Austrade Development Award for export to the China market
• 2002 Australasian Campus Union Manager’s Association Award for Best Facility Renovation RMIT Union/Hub
• 2003 University of Sydney Public Domain International Design Competition, Finalist
• 2002 Yantai Coal Economic College International Design Competition, Finalist
• 2002 Yarra’s Edge Windscreens Design Competition Finalist
• 2000 Marina Line Singapore International Design Competition, Finalist
• 1996 RMIT Swanston Street Facade Competition First Prize (with Appleton and McIntyre)
• 1995 Circular Quay Redevelopment Competition Commendation (with Appleton and McIntyre)

Publications

• '13 “New Suburban” by Stuart Harrison, publisher Thames and Hudson
• '12 “Momentum. New Victorian Architecture” for the Office of the Victorian Government Architect, published by Miegunyah Press
• '12 Houses Magazine “Wattle Avenue House” by Robert Nelson, Issue 88
• '12 The Age Newspaper “Leaning to Past Designs” by Ann Pilmer, August 19th 2012
• '12 Sunraysia Daily “Inspired by Region: House wins award” by Allyson Fonseca, August 15th 2012
• '12 The Age Newspaper “Inspired by the Hides of Marsh” by Joe Rollo, April 13th 2012
• '12 The Age Newspaper “Wandering Between the Lines” by Dylan Rainforth, April 4th 2012
• '12 Architecture Australia “With All the Views” by Paul Carter, volume 101
• '12 Encyclopedia of Australian Architecture, ed Phillip Goad and Julie Willis, publisher Cambridge
• '10 MvS Architects exhibited in “Biodivercity - 47 important ideas and technologies for the urban environment ” at the Australian Embassy Gallery, Washington.
• '09 Architectural Review Australia “About Face 2009” by Matthew Ward, volume 112
• '07 Architect Victoria “The New Carlton Brewery Site” by Ross Brewin & Paul Dash, Spring Edition
• ‘07 “Next Wave - Emerging Talents in Australian Architecture” ” by Davina Jackson, publisher Thames and Hudson
• ‘07 “Architecture and Design - Australia” ” editor Sabina Marinos, publisher daab cologne
• ‘06 “Design City Melbourne” ” by Leon van Schaik, publisher Wiley
• ‘06 Architecture Australia “Australian Wildlife Health Centre” Mar/Apr
• ‘06 Mark Magazine (Amsterdam) Issue 02 “Letter from Melbourne”
• ‘05 “10x10_2 100 Architects, 10 Critics” by Davina Jackson, publisher Phaidon
• ‘05 “Mastering Architecture” by Leon van Schaik, publisher Wiley Academy
• ‘05 Architectural Review Australia “AR Next”
• ‘04 Architecture Australia “Saying and Doing” Mar/Apr
• ‘04 Colorfulness Magazine (Beijing) “Architecture Expression on City Spirit” Oct
• ‘04 Vogue Living “Impressed