McGlashan Everist

McGlashan Everist was an Australian architectural partnership founded in 1955 by David McGlashan and Neil Everist. Their designs were characterized by low-spread houses with flat roofs and walls of tall, timber framed windows. Although their last project under the original two architects was completed in 1976, the firm continues to offer architectural and planning services in the Melbourne area.

David McGlashan (1927-1998) and Neil Everist (1929-2016) met while studying architecture at the University of Melbourne and formed the architectural firm McGlashan and Everist in 1955 in Melbourne. "The company commenced with residential commissions before turning to commercial building designs in the late 1960s. McGlashan and Everist received numerous accolades for their innovative design, and in 1963 were awarded the Victorian Architecture Medal for Grimwade House, and in 1968, the Bronze Medal of the Victorian Chapter ‘for outstanding Architecture,’ for the design of Heide II. The firm continues, now operating under the name McGlashan Everist. The last house the two original partners completed was the Mylius House II in 1976."

Typifying their designs were low-spread houses with flat roofs, which they would step down sloping sites, and walls of tall, timber-framed windows that did not open. Instead, ventilation was provided through flywire screens and glazed doors throughout, and narrow, glazed clerestories (strips of sliding glass between the beams, just below the ceiling). The light-filled living areas were open plan, with few partitions, hallways or passages. Outside, overhanging, timber-battened eaves and pergolas, provided shade during summer. "We tried to design houses that were without a time scale," says Everist. Influenced by international design ideas, McGlashan and Everist believed in the importance of connecting site and architecture, and aimed to create houses specifically for the Australian landscape.

"The Grimwade House was designed by David McGlashan and Neil Everist and constructed in 1961-62 for Geoffrey Holt Grimwade (1902-1961), his wife and their four daughters. It was built as a retirement home that could also serve as a holiday house, on a large block of land at Rye, surrounded by natural bush of melaleucas and casuarinas. It is located on a sandy ridge half kilometre from Port Phillip." "The house, designed on a 10 foot (3.048 m) module, comprises five flat-roofed pavilions, linked by covered ways, which create a variety of sheltered outdoor courtyards between the wings." The main house forms an L-shape, consisting of bedrooms and living area connected by a large north-east facing terrace.

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