Keith Hempel always knew he was going to be an architect. Growing up in Southern California with a creative mother and a technical father, he seemed destined for the vocation. A transformative, “eye opening” and “earth shattering” year studying the craft in Florence set him on his way.  

 Today, he helps lead a cohort of over 500 architects, engineers, landscape architects, interior designers and planners in his role as President/Chief Design Officer at LPA Design Studios. The integrated firm delivers timeless, sustainable built environments with a collaborative approach and focus on research-driven sustainable solutions. 

 Listen in wherever you get your podcasts as Vince and Keith discuss how his Grandmother helped build the Apollo spacecrafts, the strengths and limitations of creative intuition and why it takes years to truly become a leader. 

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As a teenager, Dr Michael Brand experienced moving from Canberra to Washington as both traumatic and exciting. It was on a journey back to Australia via family in Nepal with his brother, they were aged 15 and 18 respectively, that he first experienced Islamic art. He can trace a direct line from that experience to his field of study and life’s work.

Brand has recently retired as Director of the Art Gallery of NSW, after guiding it through the most significant transformation in its history. He’s led galleries all over the world, from the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto, to the J Paul Getty Museum in LA and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.

He started his career as curator of Asian art at the National Gallery of Australia under the iconic James Mollison. Brand is a scholar of Indian and Islamic art, architecture and landscape design and has led these world-class art museums at some of the most challenging in their history.

Listen in as Vince and Michael discuss trying to be ethical in the art world, falling in love with Asian art in Nepal aged 15 and being sent to NYC by Frank Robertson to buy art.

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The question of living well is a big one. What does it actually mean? For Eva-Marie Prineas, home is where the heart is, and the way a home is planned has the most impact in how it feels to inhabit when it’s complete.

Prineas founded her eponymous architecture practice in 2004. Perhaps unsurprising considering she would sit in the back yard of her family home in suburban Sydney and sketch the roofline. Her background and passion for heritage conservation and environmentally low-impact design form the basis of her work, and led her practice to win the Australian Institute of Architects ‘Best in Practice Prize in 2024.

Listen in as Vince and Eva-Marie discuss drawing Sydney’s heritage Finger Wharf to scale by hand as a graduate, what it means to be a B Corp Certified architecture practice and how everything she designs stems from place.

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