15 Years of Minx Architecture - A Retrospective

Celebrating 15 Years of Minx On September 13th this year we will have been designing educational spaces for 15 years (which is quite astounding to us) and to celebrate this milestone we have decided to do a ‘Minx Retrospective’, one year a week for 15 weeks. We’ll share our triumphs and our trip-ups, our lessons and our laughs and a few personal hysterics along the way. We hope you’ll stick with us for it.

Our First Year

We first toyed with the business name 'Jenny-Jane' but swiftly shunned it due to lack of lustre. Then we looked up the word woman in Roget’s Thesaurus and the word minx popped up:

mɪŋks/ an impudent, cunning, or boldly flirtatious girl or young woman.

There was certainly no lack of lustre with that word and we both quite liked the cheeky nature of it, considering we were two young women entering a generally conservative, mostly male, industry. So ‘Minx’ we became and that decision has somewhat confused people ever since. What we hadn’t taken into account was society’s enthusiasm for internet porn, which has possibly given some of our prospective clients a nasty surprise over the years, but it hasn’t seemed to deter them from working with us, so on we roll.

2001 - Our First Project & Our First Award

Mt Eliza Primary School was our first school project. Having both worked extensively as Project Architects in the school sector, the opportunity to work on our very own school project was an exciting one.

The project included the refurbishment of the whole school, new buildings to the street address and the on-site re-site of the old school house. The success of this project lead us towards a series of projects with the Department of Education, many involving old school houses, which have sentimental if not heritage value to many in the community.

This project was a finalist for the Best Primary School in the Victorian Government School Design Awards.

To date we have saved the old school houses on all of our projects, repurposing, re-siting and refurbishing them to create contemporary teaching and learning spaces.

Our strong relationship with the Department of Education continues to this day, and since our first project in 2001, we have successfully completed over 50 school projects ranging from tiny toilet upgrades to whole new school campuses for the Victorian Government. Our work has been recognised over the years through the School Design Awards and we intend for it to remain so.

Thanks to all those who cheered for us (and jeered at us) in our first year, you helped us remain focussed on succeeding which helped us make it to year two.