Polychrome is the creative collaboration bringing together the combined experience of Simon Dick and Mel Biggin. A sustainable agenda is at the forefront of our work. We believe that any architectural enterprise, whether a completely new building or adaptation of existing building should always aim to create elegant solutions. An elegant architectural solution requires a careful balance between space, materiality, form and order. 

Detail is at the heart of our practice.
director

Simon Dick

Simon is a highly regarded and widely experienced Architect and Design Leader with a background in large scale commercial projects throughout Australia. With thirty years of practice experience across a range of sectors and building typologies, Simon brings a focus on delivering progressive and innovative design solutions drawing on significant knowledge of all aspects of the architectural process, no matter what the size of project.

ARBV Registered Architect, AIA member
PRINCIPAL

Mel Biggin

Mel is a Principal Architect with the ability to lead the delivery of a wide range of projects. She has worked alongside a variety of stakeholders including Councils, Health providers, Childcare tenants, Community groups and family units. She is an active listener with a talent for coalescing site, authority and user requirements into user invested outcomes that move forward.

ARBV Registered Architect, AIA Member

ethos

THE CHOICES WE MAKE IN THE EARLY IDEATION OF A CONCEPT HAVE FOUNDATIONAL IMPACT ON OUTCOMES. 

    approach

        WE TEST OURSELVES AND ASK:

  • Do we understand context?

  • Do we understand the metrics? 

  • Do we control both the concept and the amount of built fabric we are consuming?

  • Has this relationship been reviewed ? 

  • Can what we conceive be built , and built easily within the norms and capacity of the local building industry?

  • Do our early decisions create confidence by being well considered and relevant to the brief?

    ideals

     Design should be:

  • Innovative

  • Useful

  • Aesthetic

  • Understandable

  • Unobtrusive and honest

  • Long lasting

  • Environmentally responsive

  • Responsible

values

COLLABORATIVE:

An ideation and delivery approach that recognizes and values teamwork while requiring individual input. A model where independence co-exists and is strengthened by collaboration practices enabling clarity of individual contribution.  

CREATIVE  

A practice that is curious, open and broad in its identification of concepts and solutions.  Practiced within a rigorous and critical framework, one in which the adopted solutions are deemed appropriate by assessing the value of the idea and its execution.  

CONSCIOUS

A practice which is actively conscious about the utilization and consumption of the resources and materiality it deploys in design. 
what we offer

services

With 30 years of experience across all stages of the design process combining a passion for the initial ideation and conceptual stages together with a highly developed technical knowledge and understanding of how buildings are constructed, we are ideally positioned to deliver the full range of architectural design services.
pre design

  • Briefing

  • Feasibility Design & Pre-design Exploration

  • Due Diligence     
concept & urban design

  • Site Analysis

  • Site Assessment

  • Urban Assessment

  • Masterplanning

  • Site Massing

  • Rezoning Design

  • Concept Design
architectural & interior design

  • Schematic Design

  • Design Development

  • Contract Documentation

  • Site Attendance

  • Post Occupancy Evaluation

  • Peer review
behind the name
Polychrome brickwork is a style of architectural brickwork utilising bricks of different colours in patterned combination to highlight architectural features and was extensively employed in early Melbourne Architecture.
The brick firing kilns produced a variety of brick types ranging from quality ‘Faced’, ordinary ‘Commons’ through to ‘Callows’. ‘Callows’ or ‘Dough-boys’, the underfired or under burnt bricks, are produced by uneven temperatures in the kiln. Rather than rejecting the softer and often discoloured material, Polychrome brickwork embraced it all which embodies the ingenuity and resourcefulness of this design approach.
Polychrome draws it's identity from this proposition and values honesty of expression and scarcity of building materials reinterpreted as a guide toward a sustainable future for the built environment.