Christina Bozsan Architect and Founder at BOARCH

I AM WOMAN

BOARCH is a multidisciplinary practice led by Christina Bozsan, founded to bring great architecture, design and planning to all project types, scales and budgets.

The work is undertaken in the belief that design can create places of enduring value for people. This is about making spaces that work, are warm, light filled and have an ambience of real and durable value. Projects are tailored, responsive to and responsible towards the environment.

  BOARCH uses its founder’s considerable industry experience and research focus to bring agility and innovation to this boutique studio. Christina frequently teaches at university, keeping research an integral part of her project conception and solutions.

Christina is also the same height as Claudia Schiffer, a fact that also makes her immensely proud.

July 2018

With so much experience already under her belt, it is hard to know where to begin. Today we talk with Christina about business, her pleasures, and everything in between. 

Tell us about your role as Director of Boarch, what does a typical day at work look like?

What I find rewarding about my work is the variation in what I produce and how it is produced.

So I can spend a day doing hand sketching, then 3D modelling, then visiting suppliers, writing up fee proposals, doing the BAS, preparing a presentation for university, writing reports and then answering the infinite emails.

This is definitely not unique to me, but I think this is one of the benefits of Architecture as a discipline, what you need to do to produce a building is incredibly varied.

What is your studio space like? How does your environment effect your creative process?

My office is within a larger co-working creative space in Brunswick East, walking distance from my home. It’s a converted warehouse with a photography studio on the ground floor.

Importantly there are plenty of people around and also from different fields. This makes for great coffee machine conversation. While both solicited and unsolicited advice abound, it gives us all a hugely enjoyable and creative work environment.  There is also a mutual sense of excitement about the varied things happening in the building.

I also share my space with another architectural practice, we share stories and knowledge and it is hugely rewarding to be supportive of each other and our business. There is so much to gained being open and encouraging of others.   

What are you working on right now?

I have a restaurant/café project currently in construction in Carlton North that is bringing together a number of great people and organisations.

Although still top secret, what I can say is that the space will function as a social enterprise, giving great food to the neighbourhood while also creating jobs and skills for young people.

What gets you through your day?

Frequent phone calls.

There is a lot you need to know in any project and a lot of parameters that have to be satisfied. You are often drawing in highly specific expertise that needs to be integrated into the project in harmony with all the other outcomes.

Getting on the phone for me is the step to getting this right. It’s here where I get to broaden my understanding of any issues as well as communicate to the broader team all the information around the thing, which isn’t directly the thing, but which illuminates why advice is being framed in one way and not another.

How do you like to spend your time outside of your work?

This one’s easy, dancing. A friend introduced me a number of years ago to a dance troupe called Body Electric and I found my second home and talent for costumes. 

Is there a particular piece of advice you received from someone that you always come back to?

When I decided that it was time to form BOARCH, I had a chat with my boss about it. His simple advice has stayed with me since, which was to only work for people that you like. It might sound odd, but it is really a means of establishing great communication that is essential at the outset and delivery of any project.

If you could give one piece of advice to young females, what would it be?

We all need each other. Talk broadly with the women within your organisation and make sure to talk with women outside of your own age. Share knowledge and help in making a community. This can have an amazing impact upon the culture you make and the place you go to work every day.   

Also be aware of the organisation you are entering, are there women in senior positions which you would like to see yourself in one day? Be mindful of this as you seek out prospective employers.

Be patient, a career is a long time in the making. Enjoy building it.

Somehow my one piece of advice has turned into three. 

What is the last thing you bought?

An orangey‐red jacket for my husband, he better wear it.

If you could sit down with one person anywhere in the world? Who would it be with and where?

If Jesus wasn’t available, it would be Stanley Kubrick, just to talk about 2001: A Space Odyssey.

What are you most proud of?

I’m still working on it.

Your favourite restaurant? Anywhere in the world?

Casa De Cha, Da Boa Nova in Portugal.

This restaurant is housed in a building designed by Alvaro Siza in 1963. It is both embedded and hanging in the rocks above the ocean, spectacular.

What is something you can’t live without?

A hot shower.

What do you think is the greatest invention of all time?

Soap, it's saved a lot of lives.

What are two of your most favourite KFive products? 

The Boyd coffee table, a beautiful piece and important part of Australian design history and the Oresund chair by Karl Andersson & Soner.

Find out More about Christina and her work at www.boarch.com.au