People Oriented Design

There is an enigmatic quality to the pen-and-ink sketch of a black bean seedpod that represents the identity of People Oriented Design (POD), an architectural practice based in the tropics of Far North Queensland. With echoes of Gaston Bachelard’s musings on shells whose creatures “come alive in the dialectics of what is hidden and what is manifest” (The Poetics of Space), the seedpod represents multiple qualities, at once both inside and outside.

This ambiguity encapsulates POD’s diverse, technically adept and socially engaged practice. Drawn to working with and empowering communities, architects Shaneen Fantin and Belinda Allwood – POD’s directors – met in Cairns in the aftermath of Cyclone Yasi in 2011, when they both worked with Emergency Architects Australia