Anita Panov & Andrew Scott
The two of us
Jac House by Panovscott Architects. At the heart of all their transformations is a garden, a tree, or a quiet place.
Interview by PETER SALHANi | Photography by Brett Boardman
Architects Anita Panov and Andrew Scott are partners in life, parenting and practice. They design houses and the occasional public project to elevate the everyday rituals of life. At the heart of their architectural transformations is a garden, a tree, or a quiet place.
WHAT WERE YOUR CHILDHOOD LANDSCAPES LIKE?
Anita: I grew up in Wollongong, up the hill in Wilton, on a hobby farm. We drove a lot to see family, take piano lessons, do the shopping. The journey up Mt Ousley, away from the salty air, watching the landscape become drier, more open, was formative. So were the long car trips to see family or do shopping, with the sun blinking between trees. My parents built their house and made gardens. Dad had food businesses. so he drove trucks and buses for work. He was a tinkerer, a maker, and I was always hanging around him. My grandparents were refugees, so along with their Estonian/Russian language, music and food, they brought the resourcefulness of necessity. My early memories are all about people and places of ingenuity.
Andrew: I was born in London where mum and dad lived for a couple of years, while Dad was doing his PhD in photonics, and the use of lasers in atmospheric sensing. They had wanted an Alfa Romeo, but got me instead; so we had to come home to Australia where I grew up in Victoria, at Aspendale and Mt Eliza (Mornington Peninsula), and later at Merewether in Newcastle, NSW. The landscape got a bit more rugged each time we moved. Aspendale was flat and suburban with amazing big veggie gardens. The landscape of Merewether was probably most formative: the beach, the lagoon, the gully, the ocean baths.
Andrew Scott and Anita Panov outside their laneway Courtyard House project in Sydney.
Ground floor of the Jac House opens to the garden, with a second-storey addition reaching to the jacaranda’s outstretched arms.
WHAT DREW YOU TO ARCHITECTURE?
Anita: None of the joys and challenges of architecture were obvious to my 17 year-old self. So, in a way it’s more interesting to think about what keeps me in architecture. One of my university lecturers, Ric Leplastrier, gave me a poetic way of seeing and responding to the world, and that’s what guides me still.
Andrew: My dad wanted to be an architect, but switched to engineering. He designed our family home in Newcastle; I remember the model he made vividly. I also remember our family’s Friday night fish and chips on the deck among all the unfinished framing and sawdust while it was being built! Learning on site about building trades became ingrained in me from an early age. Then at university, an early teacher turned me on to the bigger ideas ‘latent’ within buildings. I was hooked.
“A ROOM CAN BE MANY THINGS AT A GIVEN MOMENT IN TIME. A RELATIONSHIP IS VERY SIMILAR.”
WHAT’S YOUR DYNAMIC OF WORKING TOGETHER LIKE?
Anita: We contribute equally, though six years together in practice has taught us how to work to our strengths. Growing up I played the piano, but increasingly I’ve taken on an accompanist’s role – which in practice means dealing with people and the site-works side of things. The roles requiring extra patience, at times. Maybe that just suits my temperament.
Andrew: It’s time-based. Not in the time-keeping sense, but in the sense that a room can be many things at any moment in time. A relationship is very similar. For a few years, we lived in a small apartment where the living room was our lounge and our office where we worked with six employees (Monday to Friday). In that same room, we ate together at night, and had lunches there on weekends. That room no longer had a name, which is beautiful. In a small space, time works in layers.
One of Panovscott’s global inspirations, a traditional merchant’s home in the Chengkan village of China’s Anhui Province. Photo: Anita Panov.
WHAT IS A HOUSE?
Andrew: In the 1930s, the Czech modernist Karel Tiege argued for a single, private room with a couple of annexes, and said that the city was our living room. He was both influential and radical for his time, though the question is as relevant as ever. What is a house? – a place to sleep, a wash basin, a kitchen, somewhere to read, a garden to inhabit. The best houses can connect you to the broader environment, but then close down and look inward, allowing us to be our private selves.
Anita: A series of living spaces – inside and out – but how they relate is crucial. Whether it’s via a courtyard, balcony or rooftop garden, these are the vital free spaces of a house, where we connect to nature. And size can be a defining feature. In 2017 we curated A Small Exhibition at Tin Sheds Gallery in Sydney, presenting 20 projects by like-minded local practitioners, who are all finding new ways to make housing better on smaller lots. It illustrated how small spaces can be rich. And that most of us can live with less.
Windows and light are pivotal to Panovscott. 1 of 16 house (above), solved the typical terrace house problem of light deprivation with a cloud-shaped skylight above the stairs. Adding whimsy to wit, walls were painted a pastel pink.
WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT DESIGNING HOUSES?
Anita: They’re deeply personal. They deal with everyday life. The constraints are higher, the solutions richer. We choose clients carefully, and prefer to engage with people who intend to work with us through to the end. People committed to the design process, not just the outcome or the object.
Andrew: One of our rules is that projects we take on are about transformation, not speculation, so we don’t exactly embrace the developer model. Instead, we work on small-scale projects where we have a level of control — so that all the important design ideas will make it to the end. This helps us to keep people and their needs front and centre of the project.
Armature for a Window terrace house transformation was defined by vertical sliding windows, framed in cedar, inspired by traditional houses of Kyoto.
YOUR BREAKTHROUGH PROjECT?
Anita: Our first transformation together was our own home – before the kids. It launched the practice. It was a terrace house. We rebuilt ourselves between 2007 and 2011, while doing our ‘apprenticeships’ at larger practices. It taught us the sacrifice and precision required to make architecture. It also helped us find our own rhythm for working together. When the project was nearly complete, we took off travelling for a few months around Europe and India. On that trip we decided to start our own family and practice together. Which meant selling the house we’d built to fund our new life. It’s a decision we’ve never regretted.
WHY DO YOU PUBLISH A BOOK AT THE END OF EVERY PROJECT?
Andrew: Initially it was to reflect on the thinking behind those early houses, distilling the ideas and influences into a small book as a permanent record of the journey, both for us and the client.
“WE INVEST A LOT OF ENERGY IN PROJECTS. BUT IN THE END, THEY’RE NOT OURS TO KEEP.”
