Giant architect built for justice – COL JAMES, 1936-2013

Col James was a giant who took great strides with gentle
steps, followed a career-long path with clear direction and purpose, but
always had time for a cup of tea and to listen to those seldom heard
by the architectural world he loved.

This giant used the skills and endurance of a boxer to
transform the idea of ”house” from a design object into ”housing”,
the actions that over time enrich people’s lives. In his own words, he
”made housing a verb” for his anonymous clients, those people unserved
by the benefits of a wealthy society.

Here was a giant who taught generations of students by using
the University of Sydney design studio to work in the community for
co-operatives, Aboriginal organisations and the homeless.

He built and occupied an autonomous house on campus.

Colin Leslie James was born in the town of Walcha on July 18,
1936, the son of Arthur James, a manager with the Bank of NSW, and his
wife, Estelle (nee Ferguson), and this link to the country continued to
be an important part of the urban man.

After high school at The King’s School in Parramatta, James
studied architecture part-time at Sydney Technical College and then at
the University of NSW, where he was president of the Architecture Club
and won a boxing blue. After graduating from UNSW, he worked with the
large practice of Stephenson and Turner under Sir Arthur Stephenson and
Donald Turner.

Then, in the British journal Architectural Design,
James read about the Team 10 Primer and breakaway European architects
including Aldo Van Eyck and Jacob Bakema from Holland, who complained
that architects had sold out to the rich and ignored the bulk of society
living in derelict and poor housing. ”Turn on the lights,” Van Eyck
said. ”Regard the anonymous clients,” Bakema said.

Fired by these words, James won a Stephenson and Turner
scholarship to study at Harvard and ended up in Bakema’s studio. He
later worked with the Architects Collaborative under Walter Gropius.

On returning to Sydney, James continued working with
Stephenson and Turner on schools and aged-person settlements for the
Salvation Army. He was living in Redfern and set up Archanon, a
collaborative dedicated to the anonymous client.

There was no shortage of potential clients in Redfern, where
many Aboriginal organisations needed help. James worked with Father Ted
Kennedy, Mum Shirl, Dick Blair, and Bob and Kaye Bellear on
grassroots community services, including the Aboriginal Medical Service,
Aboriginal Legal Service, black theatre, refuges and markets, and the
housing for The Block with the Aboriginal Housing Company.

James completed further study in town and country planning
at UNSW under Professor Denis Winston. The course precepts – ”serve
your client and community equally” and planning based on public good –
were obvious in his work.

Resident action was in James’s DNA, and he joined the
Builders Labourers Federation, working with Jack Mundey and Joe Owens as
an independent adviser on the Green Bans. He was appointed by Whitlam
government minister Tom Uren as a resident advocate for the development
of Woolloomooloo under the Federal Department of Urban and Regional
Development initiatives.

In the 1970s, Professor Peter Johnson offered James a
teaching position with the architecture faculty at the University of
Sydney. He worked with a range of tutors, lecturers and students who
were linked by their passion and optimism.

Almost immediately, students from the University of Sydney
and UNSW combined on a project to recycle the almost deserted town of
Nimbin in northern NSW. In James’s words: ”This proved to be a
resounding success for decentralised living in cheap former dairy lands,
building simple houses, making babies and promoting ‘lifestyle’ as a
progressive occupation and an ‘industry’.”

From this work, James was asked by the NSW government to
develop a multiple-occupancy policy. Later, he led a group of students
to produce Low Cost Country Home Building, a self-help book for people wanting to build simple houses in rural areas.

In the late 1970s, James’s life-long interest in housing led
to further study at the Architectural Association in London with Hugo
Hinsley. On his return to Australia, James launched the housing studies
program at the University of Sydney, and he later become director of the
Ian Buchan Fell Housing Research Centre, with the support of Vic
Spencer, Peter Webber and Susan Clarke. James made sure the centre
served those in most need of basic housing. In 2001, he received the NSW
Architects Registration Board’s Byera Hadley Travelling Scholarship to
study the use of vacant buildings by the homeless in Britain and Europe.
On returning to Australia, he worked with developers, the
construction industry, government officials and architects to create
CRASH (Construction industry Relief and Assistance for the Single
Homeless).

James was seconded from the university to the NSW Department
of Housing in 1987 to head a team implementing the Homes on Aboriginal
Land program in NSW. This led to further work in Redfern for the
Aboriginal Health and Medical Research Council, Boomalli Artists
Co-operative and the Bangarra Dance Group.

James served on state housing committees to initiate the
Community Tenancy Scheme, the Local Government Community Housing
Program, the South West Inner Sydney Co-op, the Supported
Accommodation and Assistance Program, the Crisis Accommodation Program
and the Erskineville youth refuge.

His recent work involved a feasibility study for a College of
the Spirit for the Tharawal Local Aboriginal Land Council. This
pioneering work involved 20 architecture students and 1000 Land Council
members, and suggested new directions for the care, restoration and
management of land, and educational initiatives.

James’s commitment to the Aboriginal Housing Company in
Redfern, with friend and colleague Michael (Mick) Mundine and later
Lani Tuitavake, spanned three decades and became his longest project.

James would have been embarrassed by these words cataloguing
his work. Likewise at any mention of all the unsolicited awards he
received – a Member of the Order of Australia, a life fellow of the
Australian Institute of Architects, the University of Sydney Alumni
Award for Community Service, a life member of Shelter, the Australian
Housing Institute’s Lifetime Achievement Award, and many, many more. He
learnt from history, but he was not keen on looking back. There was
simply too much ahead, too many projects to work on, and too many
opportunities to build change.

Gary Mallard wrote recently: ”Col James was the essence of
intellect, integrity, tolerance and sincerity carried with a quiet
dignity that sometimes had a sting in its tail. He was living proof
that sometimes the good guys wear the black hats.”

In recent times, as his powers of memory declined, this
essence of his character was unchanged. As James roamed the corridors of
the architecture faculty he loved, intent on completing some forgotten
but urgent task, staff member Glen Hill reflected: ”During that period
he spent a lot of time in the faculty, sometimes disoriented, but
sometimes lucid. Regardless, to the end he was absolutely committed to
his causes. As an academic he was tireless in his pursuit of justice and
equity for society and the environment. He never lost that
commitment.”

James delighted in sitting with family around the dinner
table, savouring the taste of octopus, sharing cups of tea, laughing at
silly stories in an odd south coast restaurant until his sides ached,
and making trips up the Hawkesbury River to the family river refuge,
Gentleman’s Halt.

Col James is survived by his partner, Karine Shellshear, and their daughter, Zoe.

Paul Pholeros, Karine Shellshear and Sue Clarke