Solid, Simple, Beautiful: A TRIAS Profile in Houses Magazine

This profile was written by David Welsh of Welsh + Major for Houses magazine, following a long and generous conversation with Casey, Jennifer and Jonathon at A.P Bakery in Surry Hills. We have long admired Welsh + Major’s work, so it was a pleasure to speak with David about the ideas, values and experiences that continue to shape TRIAS.

 

Originally published in Houses magazine, Issue [167/2025]. Reproduced with permission.

 

Since its foundation in 2017 by Jennifer McMaster, Casey Bryant and Jonathon Donnelly, Trias has established a reputation for work that is at once quiet and radical. The practice’s projects resist spectacle, embrace durable materials and focus on the essentials of living well. Their founding principles – to be “solid, simple, beautiful,” their own take on the Vitruvian Triad – is grounded in their fascination for the way people live, and for how we might all live as best as we can.

 

The studio’s beginnings, they told me, had something of a “rolling start.” Their indelible interest in housing had led them to a series of speculative projects and competition entries designed while they were still at university. It was their winning entry in the student category of the 27 Smith Street housing competition run by Sydney Living Museums that led to their first commission, after the client saw Trias’s work at the competition exhibition.

 

That first project, Three Piece House (2018; see Houses 124), remains a touchstone for the practice. Designed for downsizers on a flood-prone corner block in Newcastle, it comprises three skewed pavilions containing a main house and a studio, arranged around a courtyard. By resisting the urge to build to the boundaries, Trias created privacy while also opening sightlines to gardens and streetscape. Silvertop ash cladding and recycled bricks lend texture and longevity, while the courtyard becomes the project’s social heart. The house won awards for both sustainability and residential design, but more importantly, it helped set the tone for the practice’s trajectory: architecture that is restrained, crafted and deeply considered.

 

This deep consideration is something the practice has gleaned from key architectural influences – Scandinavian architecture’s modern humanists such as Alvar Aalto and Jørn Utzon. Jonathon also mentions Dieter Rams, specifically his ten principles of good design, which in turn have led to Trias developing, or adopting their own mantras. As Jennifer explains, “[principles such as] ‘less but better’ and ‘less home and more garden’ are North Stars that promote building less and more thoughtfully, and in response to the changing landscape of both architectural practice and society more broadly.”

 

While Three Piece House explores its interaction with the public realm, Curl Curl House (2021) is more private, and perhaps even quieter. Situated on Sydney’s Northern Beaches and influenced by the walled courtyard houses of Mexico City, this new family home reads as a pair of brick volumes joined by a light-filled pavilion. To the street, it is solid and protective; to the garden, it opens with generosity.

 

The early design stages of Curl Curl House also prompted the practice to expand its approach to sustainable living. Jennifer explains how the clients “wanted a very solid home, to feel protected and safe, after a lifetime spent in flimsy rentals. Our line of enquiry became: how do we create a sustainable home that embraces having high thermal mass? This led to lots of exposed finishes paired with recycled timbers and a lush garden. We also focused on carbon neutral operations via a heat pump and solar, which runs the hot water, pool heating and reverse-cycle hydronics, which make the most of all the mass and bring thermal comfort year-round.”