Grant Divall Architect

Based in Djilang (Geelong), Grant Divall is a sole practitioner with experience in architecture and urbanism across a broad range of project types, scales, and budgets.  Every design emerges through dialogue, curiosity and respect.  

My goal is to design thoughtful, well-crafted buildings that contribute positively to their environments and inspire their inhabitants to lead more connected and happy lives.

Please don't hesitate to call me to discuss your project, small or large, or collaboration opportunities. 

SPATIAL PRACTICE 

My architectural experience has been gained across a range of spatial contexts—from dense urban environments to regional towns and evolving suburbs.  Alongside practice, I have a long-held commitment to teaching design, using education as a space for experimentation, critical thinking, and dialogue. My teaching and design work has regularly explored how architecture can actively participate in everyday life, shaping meaningful interactions between people, place, and the built environment - an example of this being my experience delivering design outcomes working in collaboration with First Peoples organisations and communities.  Through both making and teaching, I approach architecture as an open, collaborative process grounded in action, curiosity, and civic engagement.

STORYTELLING DESIGN ETHOS + APPROACH

I approach architecture as an act of making meaningful connections - where, hopefully, every detail carries memory, craft, and quiet narrative. I'm inspired by the poetics of construction, and where possible, my work begins not with fixed forms, but with found and/or salvaged fragments/objects: materials shaped by previous lives, domestic rituals, and time.  Clients interested in working in this way see design emerge through assembly rather than imposition. Construction becomes an opportunity to tell a story.  To support storytelling, I have a strong interest in the use of daylighting and lighting design to softly expose wear, texture, and the subtle histories embedded within materials/surfaces.

Through careful making, I try to resist the anonymous and the mass-produced, and instead embrace the imperfect, the tactile, and the deeply human (and the more-than-human). In this way I aim and hope for architecture that is crafted, not manufactured—an accumulation of parts that remember, connect, and endure.

ACKNOWLEDGING COUNTRY

 I  acknowledge and pay respect to the Traditional Owners, and Elders past, present, and emerging, of the lands and waters on which I live and work.