Nielsen Jenkins
Co-founders Lachlan Nielsen and Morgan Jenkins
The esteemed 10 recognises 10 Australians for their excellence in residential architecture and design in 2026. Each recipient has their own legacy-building approach to homes that enrich and sustain the lives within them, centre those who create them, and magnify design’s indelible impact on the landscape and community.
Proudly supported by Armadillo & Space Furniture
Our design work is best summed up in the phrase:
Lachlan Nielsen: If someone walks into one of our projects and the first thing they notice is the tile, tap or light fitting, then we’ve done a terrible job. We want to create spatially memorable buildings from simple, economical materials.
What aspect of your work are people most curious about?
Morgan Jenkins: Clients often come to us because they are interested in achieving a meaningful connection between their internal living spaces and the surrounding landscape. We have always placed equal priority on both the built and unbuilt parts of a site.
What has recently challenged the way you think about design?
Lachlan Nielsen: Post COVID, soaring construction prices have meant that it’s increasingly difficult to manage clients’ expectations about the brief versus their budget. We have used this process as a way to strip our projects of overt opulence and decoration and spend money on the things that deliver conceptual clarity instead. We are fascinated by reducing the number of trades on a building site to achieve construction clarity and efficiency.
El Paso House by Nielsen Jenkins
El Paso House by Nielsen Jenkins
What person, building, product, or art piece has had a lasting impact on your work?
Morgan Jenkins: A tour I did of architect Norman Foster’s office in London in 2017. Seeing how integrated all the design disciplines were in that office’s process made us question whether we could incorporate aspects of design to streamline our own. We had been frustrated by the landscape design in many of our projects previously, and this became the catalyst for bringing landscape designers into our team and often taking on that process ourselves. It has led to a much more integrated design outcome that evolves simultaneously, rather than the landscape design being an add-on, or something that can be simplified or removed.
The three words I would most like people to attribute to our work are:
Lachlan Nielsen: Simple, robust and memorable.
What is the one piece of advice you would share with an emerging designer?
Morgan Jenkins: Nothing happens overnight. We hate the way architects talk about “choosing their clients”. It feels like the privileged position of an established firm, but there is a reality to starting a practice that needs to be addressed. Try to find something to love in even the most mundane commission and promote that thing. You get more of the work that you put out into the world, so be careful that you love the things you share.
Where do you go to appreciate exceptional design?
Lachlan Nielsen: We’ve had really formative trips to Europe, Asia, South Africa and South America. We both love the rawness of non-European cities and are inspired by the diverse architectural solutions to similar climatic conditions.
What’s one thing you’d like to see more of in design? Less?
Morgan Jenkins: We really appreciate simple, economical buildings. We are attracted to the early work of many practices, as the grapple with budget is a real and present force. We’re drawn to buildings that understand and celebrate the people who assemble them, and detail becomes a way to showcase these skills rather than anything decorative.
This piece originally appeared in our special print edition of est magazine, issue 60: ‘Design Instinct’.
Yeronga House by Nielsen Jenkins
Dutton Park by Nielsen Jenkins