Daryl Sanders JacksonAO (7 February 1937 – 21 February 2026) was an Australian architect, who designed alone or with partners numerous notable large scale projects across Australia and internationally, ranging from schools and colleges to sports facilities, office blocks, hospital wings and residential complexes. The designs included stylistic influences from Brutalism and High Tech to Postmodernism and Deconstructivism, and the firm as won numerous awards since in the 1970s. Jackson was also an educator as an associate professor at the University of Melbourne and Deakin University.
Early life
Jackson was born on 7 February 1937 in Clunes, Victoria, Australia, and was educated at Wesley College in Melbourne. He completed a diploma in architecture at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), then moved to the University of Melbourne, graduating with a Bachelor of Architecture in 1959. After working with architects in Melbourne, Sydney, he married his wife Kaye and they spent some years living overseas. Daryl worked in London for Chamberlin Powell & Bonn, best known for the Brutalist landmark of the Barbican Centre, and in the United States for Paul Rudolph, a seminal figure in the development of Brutalism and 'megastructures'.
Architectural career
Harold Holt Memorial Swimming Pool, 1969, cornerCanberra School of Music, 1976
Jackson Walker
He returned to Melbourne in 1964, and established his first practice, with fellow University of Melbourne graduate Evan Walker. Walker later moved to Canada in 1965, where he lived and worked until 1969. The Jackson Walker office was in a terrace in East Melbourne with other architects, including Kevin Borland, sharing staff and expertise. In about 1966 Borland collaborated with Jackson on is first notable project, the Harold Holt Memorial Swimming Centre, which opened in 1969. The pool was the seminal example of the Victorian version of the Brutalist style, with bare concrete, concrete block walls, sculptural forms and directed movement through the building via ramps and stairs, and is now on the Victorian Heritage Register.
In 1969 Jackson Walker were one of a number of noted architects tasked with designing houses for the new Elliston Estate in Rosanna a suburb in the north of Melbourne developed by Merchant Builders, a planned subdivision with common gardens without fences and similarly styled low slung brick and timber designs.
Though a young practice, Jackson Walker then worked principally on large scale projects. One early area of success was in schools, designing Lauriston Girls School Special Studies Building (1969), a bold red brick design wrapping around a courtyard, which won the RAIA (Vic) Bronze Medal in 1970. This was followed by Princes Hill High School (1972) in bold Brutalist concrete style, which also won the Bronze Medal, and the even bolder form of the R.A.W. Woodgate Resource Centre at MLC the next year, which won a Bronze Medal in the General Buildings category in 1974.
Other notable projects include two very bold sculptural bare concrete Brutalist designs, the YMCA in Suva, Fiji (1973), and the Canberra School of Music (1976, now Llewellyn Hall, ANU School of Music). The Music School was the first of many projects that followed in Canberra. Another landmark early brick Brutalist project was the City Edge Housing development (1971—1974) in South Melbourne, a set of multi-level apartments accessed via ramps and stairs along a pedestrian internal walkway, set above the carpark, which won the 1976 Bronze Medal (RAIA Housing Award). The State Bank College, also in rural Baxter (1977), used similar blocky forms but on a smaller scale and in concrete block, with residential units stepped in plan, and down the slope. In contrast to these Brutalist designs, the St Pauls School, Baxter (1974–1979), now Woodleigh School Senior campus, was a collection of timber structures in a bush setting.
In the 1970s Jackson designed a few residential projects in the rough-hewn unpainted timber type then gaining popularity. One was his own holiday house in Shoreham on the Mornington Peninsula, a design of many levels and layers, and another a house for the Abrahams family on the beachfront at Brighton (1979). Both designs featured the use of timber slat pergolas/verandahs providing shade.
Evan Walker left the firm in 1978 in order to pursue a political career, becoming Minister for Planning in the early 1980s.
Daryl Jackson Architecture
After 1980 the work of the firm took on new directions, including expressed steel structure for large-span projects, and a more eclectic approach to composition, influenced by the new trends of Postmodernism.
The Canberra School of Art (1981, now part of the ANU Institute of the Arts) introduced rounded and stepped planning. The pool for the new Australian Institute of Sport (1983) is a notable work from this period, featuring a white tubular trussed roof in stepped sections with arched skylight edges. Expressed steel structure also features in the steel canopy of the Great Southern Stand at the MCG (1992 designed in association with Tompkins Shaw & Evans), an approach used in other stadiums and sports halls. The firm was also commissioned for two major embassy commissions, the Singapore High Commission in Canberra (1985), and the Australian embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (1989), which features stylised references to local vernaculars.
The firm continued to grow, and undertook major commercial office projects, notably 120 Collins Street (with Hassell), completed in 1991. Featuring squared window openings, striped cladding and a stepped top, the steel spire atop the 52 floors made it the tallest in Australia for many years.
The firm also worked within a new regard for heritage that was developing in the 1980s. Early in that decade, Jackson renovated a very altered pair of 19th century terraces in east Melbourne into his own family home, with some stylised classical features and a steel trellis balcony. In Canberra, the firm restored and sympathetically extended the 1924 Hotel Canberra, re-opening in 1988.
About 1990 Jackson was awarded the major project to build the new Museum of Victoria on Southbank, in a design of angled forms, domes and stripes. This was only partially built, and later transformed into part of the Melbourne Exhibition Centre by the up and coming firm Denton Corker Marshall.
A major redevelopment of the MCG followed, with the Great Southern Stand (now the Shane Warne Stand) completed in 1992. Designed in association with Tompkins Shaw & Evans, who had done MCG stands previously, it features a dramatic expressed cantilevered steel structure supporting a continuous roof. This was followed by a similar design, but with a fabric roof, for the Northern Grandstand at 'the Gabba' in Brisbane, completed in 1997. That design was repeated in stages around the ground until in 2005 it encircled the whole oval. In 2006, Jackson returned as part of a consortium of five architects to design the Great Northern Stand for the other half of the MCG.
Another project in a heritage context was the extension of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, in association with the NSW Government Architect, completed in 2001. In a 'brilliant move', the new faculties were placed under grassed terraces around the existing Gothik style building, dating from 1841. With heritage consultants Allom Lovell, the firm also restored and renovated the historic Customs House in Melbourne to meet a new role as the Immigration Museum, opening in 1998.
The new County Court of Victoria on the corner of William and Lonsdale Streets was another award winning project, completed in 2002. Designed in association with Lyons, it features angular and folded geometries, and a dramatic cantilevered porch over the entrance.
Jackson Architecture
Since about 2000, the practice has been known as Jackson Architecture, and grown to be involved in numerous large scale projects. With branches in Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra, Brisbane, London, Vietnam, and China, the firm has completed university and college facilities, stadiums, commercial offices, art galleries, and industrial structures.
As the chief principal of design at Jackson Architecture, Jackson perceived his role relative to that of a film director: "working on the plot, lining up the cameras, producing and editing to generate the desired result". While Jackson unified each product with his direct design input, he placed a strong emphasis on collaborative design and idea thinking, and acknowledged the talent and co-professionalism of other designers that help piece together each project.
Major involvements with other architects included the Southern Cross Station redevelopment with Grimshaw Architects, completed in 2006, and the Great Northern Stand of the MCG as part of a consortium of five practices. Jackson's Sydney practice, Daryl Jackson Robin Dyke Pty Ltd, was the Executive Architect for the Frank Gehry-designed The Dr Chau Chak Wing Building for the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS), which was completed in 2015.
Other notable works mentioned on the practice website in 2026 include:
Jackson taught architecture at RMIT, and wrote a regular column on housing for The Age from 1966 to 1999. Jackson was also a principal lecturer at Royal Australian Institute of Architects (RAIA) conventions and a visiting professor of architecture and design at the University of New South Wales in 1982.
Jackson has published three books on his practice: Daryl Jackson, architecture, drawings and photographs, Macmillan, South Melbourne, 1984; Daryl Jackson: selected and current works, Images Publishing, Mulgrave, Vic., 1996; and Evolutionary modernism: Daryl Jackson, Melbourne University Publishing, 2006.
Personal life
Daryl Jackson married Kay in 1961, and had four children, two of whom are also architects. Sara Jackson worked worked in her father's office in the 1990s, and since 2013 has been a Director. Tim Jackson is also an architect, and in 1998 was a founding partner of Jackson, Clements, Burroughs, known as JCB Architects.
Death
Jackson died on 21 February 2026, at the age of 89.
2015 – A national Australian Institute of Architects Award for educational buildings was established and named the Daryl Jackson Award for Educational Architecture.
Awards
Jackson Walker
Largely taken from the book Evolutionary modernism: Daryl Jackson, Melbourne University Publishing, 2006.
2003– RAIA (Victorian Chapter) Interior Architecture Award for the County Court of Victoria, Melbourne, with Lyons and Sinclair Knight Merz
2004– RAIA (Queensland Chapter) Gold Coast Region Building of the Year for Nerang Library
2010– RAIA (WA Chapter) Public Architecture Award and Regional Commendation for the WA Basketball Centre (AK Reserve), Perth, in association with Peter Hunt Architects JV
2010– RAIA (WA Chapter) Colourbond Award for Steel Architecture and RAIA Regional Commendation for the WA Basketball Centre, Perth, in association with Peter Hunt Architects JV
2010– Master Builders (WA) Excellence in Construction Award, Best State Government Building Commendation for the WA Basketball Centre (AK Reserve), Perth, in association with Peter Hunt Architects JV
2010– Master Builders (VIC) Excellence in Construction Award, Excellence in Commercial Buildings $10M-$15M for the Commendation VIC Ivanhoe Girls' Grammar School, Melbourne
2010– Western Australian Heritage Award for the WA Police Midland Operations Support Facility, Perth, in association with Peter Hunt Architects JV
2013– Master Builders (Victoria) Excellence in Construction of Commercial Building for the Olivia Newton-John Cancer and Wellness Centre, Melbourne in association with McConnel Smith Johnson
2014 – Master Builders (Victoria) Excellence in Commercial Construction, for Melbourne Park Eastern Precinct Redevelopment
12345678Goad, Philip; Willis, Julie, eds. (2012). The encyclopedia of Australian architecture. Port Melbourne, Vic: Cambridge University Press. ISBN978-0-521-88857-8.
