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Frost Architecture and Design

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Frost Architecture and Design

Contact information, map and directions, contact form, opening hours, services, ratings, photos, videos and announcements from Frost Architecture and Design, Architectural Designer, Armidale.

Architecture, Interior Design and Heritage Consultancy firm realising context considerate design, connecting people to place, within the New England NSW region.

25/05/2026

9 in 10 Australian homes are designed without an Architect.

That stat was delivered by Architect Kerstin Thompson at a symposium attended on the weekend, and it's stayed with me.

We see it's counterproductive that people who need to reduce their energy bills in these times, don't get to enjoy thoughtful materials, siting and orientation in their home, requiring less mechanical heating and cooling.

It's disappointing alot of people don't get a home that's designed around them and their lifestyle, filled with elements of delight to lift even the most mundane of daily tasks.

It's sad the average Australian doesn't think Architecture is for them. Architecture isn't a luxury. The assumptiom that it is, is costing people more than they realise.

If you're considering engaging an Architect, we're not asking you to increase your budget. Quite the opposite. We're asking you to spend what you already planned, just with more thinking behind it.

We'd love to hear from you and talk it through.

18/05/2026

The federal budget dropped last week with some big moves for housing and construction. As an Architect practising in regional NSW, here's my honest take.

The push toward prefab housing and modular construction makes some sense on paper. Faster to build, more efficient to deliver, and we genuinely need more housing. But prefab, by it's nature, is designed away from the site it ends up on. It doesn't know the land, the light, the feel of a cool versus a freezing winter, or the community it's being dropped into. For a country a geographically and culturally varied as Australia, that's a real loss not just aesthetically, but in terms of what makes our local places feel like themselves.

There's give and take here, and I accept that. But we should go in with our eyes open.

The negative gearing changes- redirecting investment toward new builds, are designed to boost supply. Again, I understand the intent. However the general logic of investment (being maximimising returns) applies pressure to produce buildings with no consideration for passive design, performance of materials and long-term liveability. A cheap building sometimes isn't a cheap building for long- it can cost more to run, it degrades faster, and doesn't last as long as it's quality-considerate counterparts.

We're potentially solving a short-term numbers problem by creating a long-term quality problem.

What I'd rather see, and what I try to practice, is housing that is genuinely designed for where it sits. Efficient, affordable where we can make it so, but also considered, durable and specific to it's place.

More homes. But homes worth having.

11/05/2026

Today is my eldest son's fifth birthday.

Which means that just recently, Frost Architecture and Design turned five too. Two things I love bought into the world in the same year- both still growing and both still keeping me on my toes.

Five years of mostly 3-4 days a week, worked around small children and a farm and a life that wasn't going to pause to get a business going. Not a conventional way to build a pratice, but I wouldn't change much.

Genuinely, what I'm most grateful for is the Clients.

Those who have handed me their projects and trusted me with them. Those who let me into their homes and their plans and their futures. Those who were patient when things moved slowly and appreciative when things went well. Architecture is an unusually intimate profession. Clients aren't just buying a service, they're letting someone in to something that really matters to them, and I've never taken that lightly.

The time from the last five years that stays with me the most isn't a drawing or a completed building. It's a recently finished project where the client, builder and I fell into a rhythm of weekly site meetings that somehow became a morning tea club. We took turns buying coffee. We talked about the project, and about everythjng else. It became a reminder of one of the genuinely good things about this work; that relationships are as much the point as the buildings.

To every client who has trusted me with their project over the last 5 years, thank you. It has meant more than I can say here.

Here's to the next 5 🥂

27/04/2026

Timber gets asked the wrong question here.

The question is usually: frame in timber or steel? Asked late, at the detailing stage, after most of the real design decisions have already been made.

But timber shouldn't be a structural afterthought. It's a design material; one that, in the New England context, does things nothing else quite does.

Our local hardwoods, for instance Stringybark, Yellow Box, Iron bark and Blackbutt, are dense, highly durable, and genuinely strong. Many meet some of the higher BAL ratings required for building in bushfire-prone areas, which most of this region outside of the town limits is. They age well in this climate. They hold their own.

And visually, timber does something to a room that's hard to name but easy to feel. A warmth. A sense that it came from this country, not a catalogue.

Often the local species are overlooked in favour of whatever is cheaper and more readily available. So we end up with buildings in the New England using timber from somewhere else entirely, when what's here is better suited, better looking, and better for the place.

Timber isn't just what you build the frame out of. Used well, from the start, it's what makes a building feel like it belongs.

07/01/2026

not only nailing the delicious home-made food late last year, but also the vernacular architecture- a simple, pivoting section of roof both lets more natural light into the deep verandah and allows hot air to escape 👏

05/01/2026

Happy new year!

We hope you have all had a lovely festive season, filled with whatever it is that makes you happy. Frost Architecture is back on deck for 2026, and look forward to sharing more of what is going on behind the scenes.

Holiday 📸 of Trial Bay Gaol, making sure we know exactly where the old meets the new.

13/11/2025

Not sure how we ended up here again, but 6 weeks to go...

Photo Credit: Nikole Ramsay for

09/11/2025

No paper on site? No problem.

06/11/2025

The 2025 National Architecture Awards are announced tonight in Canberra- good luck to all those nominated. Take a look at the below link for inspiring projects that address contemporary challenges:

https://www.architecture.com.au/awards/2025-awards

Project depicted in photograph: Spinifex House by
Photograph credit: Peter Barnes

03/11/2025

Interrupting our quiet social media presence lately with our logo on a jersey!

Address

Armidale, NSW
2350

Opening Hours

Monday	9am - 5pm
Tuesday	9am - 5pm
Wednesday	9am - 5pm
Thursday	9am - 5pm
Friday	9am - 5pm

Website

https://www.frostarchitecturedesign.com.au/

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