Getting to know... Matthew Bird
Dr Matthew Bird
Name: Dr Matthew Bird
Faculty/Division: Monash Art Design and Architecture (MADA)
Department: Architecture
Campus: Caulfield
Where did you work prior to starting at the University?
RMIT University and Studiobird (my architecture business).
What do you like best about your role?
Inspiring students and developing my experimental architecture research practice.
Why did you choose your current career path?
It chose me. I’m an architecture nerd at heart and from an early age my destiny was to be a contemporary architect and build the unthinkable.
First job?
Paperboy.
Worst job?
Paperboy for obvious early morning reasons.
What research/projects are you currently working on and what does it involve?
For the new Geelong Library and Heritage Centre I’m designing a children's reading ‘nest’ in the form of an egg and clad in 2000 metres of timber desk edge banding and trailer reflectors … A curious avian themed learning environment… Also designing a Melbourne Festival Art Tram for this years festival. In collaboration with cheographer and performance artist Phillip Adams transforming a Class D tram by covering the exterior with imagery of modernist freeways and rooftops but juxtaposed with an ‘unknown’ alien figure.
What is your favourite place in the world and why?
Summertime in Vienna, Austria. This city knows coffee, architecture, art galleries, strudel and sublime hotels.
What is your favourite place to eat and why?
Highbrow would be Vue de Monde Rialto for incredible food, interior design and views and lowbrow would be a KFC zinger burger at 1am.
What is the best piece of advice you have received?
Not everyone will agree with your design ideas and that’s okay… Good design should be provocative and polarising.
Tell us something about yourself that your colleagues wouldn’t know?
I’m obsessed with cliché Hollywood blockbuster films. Saturday mornings I'm at Hoyts with a bucket of coffee and popcorn and glued to the latest Terminator flick.