Architect William Smart on David Sedaris, great jackets and his space-age home in Sydney

My personal style signifier is an old pair of matte-black Prada shoes that I purchased more than 10 years ago. No laces, no branding, a slightly odd proportion, but they’re almost indestructible. I wear them to bike around the city; I wear them in the rain. They keep me marching on. 

The last thing I bought and loved was a pumpkin-coloured Zegna coat in a silk/linen blend. It’s kind of boxy with great black chamfered corners on each of the pockets. It feels as if it was made for me. 

The place that means a lot to me is Hawkesbury River, about an hour north of Sydney, where my partner and I have a holiday shack. It’s all National Parks, so even though you’re close to the city, once you arrive – which you can only do by boat – it’s like entering the wilderness. At the base of the tall sandstone cliffs are beautiful Angophora trees and a briny tidal river around 500m to 600m wide, which snakes its way to the ocean. We’ve embarked on a bush regeneration project there that is going to take roughly a decade to complete; I’m addicted to re-establishing the old ecosystem. There are snakes, bull sharks, big spiders. All that stuff. No crocodiles, though.

The best book I’ve read in the past year is The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. It was my second time reading it and I loved it from cover to cover. It reminds one about life, adventure, dreams and chance. Also, I must have tackled The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen at least four times since I first picked it up 20 years ago. Last month, I attempted it again: huge success.

An object I would never part with is our studio and home in Alexandria, one of Sydney’s conservation areas. It was previously a 1950s warehouse, which we converted a couple of years ago into two separate open-plan units. Our apartment sits above the studio [Smart Design Studio], which some people think is mad, but I love the arrangement. If I’m busy, I can head down to the office early and get things done; if I’m tired I can go upstairs and have a nap. My favourite room is the lounge, a 14m by 7m space with a vaulted ceiling and balconies at both ends. It’s a magic place, constructed entirely of self-supported Roman-style brick. You can only see the sky and a couple of trees from the windows. 

My style icon is Alessandro Sartori, the artistic director of Zegna. I love his work – as my new coat can attest – as well as his personal style. He wears a great jacket with a simple T-shirt, jeans and boots – and gets it right every time. 

The future of design will move sustainability further to the centre of conversation. There will be a greater emphasis on renewable materials in construction, and learning to work with what you’ve got, not just tearing a building down. We are also likely to see a rise in demand for more short-term accommodation as people become less rigid about their space. At the moment you can only be in an apartment building, a hotel building or a workplace: you can’t build those things together. This blurred boundary will be part of the future.

My favourite website is WillyWeather, which I use to check the tide. I’m fascinated by the way it changes according to the phases of the moon. I also love my Apple Music app: music has been a big part of my life ever since I got my first Walkman at 14. 

The best gift I’ve received (if you could call it that) was a round-the-world ticket at the end of university. It was part of the WH Robertson Memorial Travel Grant and started something life-changing: five years of living abroad. I travelled through Europe to France, where I stayed for 18 months before heading to London to work at Foster + Partners. I had this wonderful sense of freedom, and I learnt so much about architecture. 

The last music I downloaded was an EP: Drown Me by German techno producer Aparde. I like dance music when I’m working: fairly repetitive electronic sounds or contemporary music that’s dramatic and over the top. I’ll pop on my headphones and pick up my drawing pen: it helps me find my rhythm. My Spotify “For You” playlist is all electro-classical crossovers. Think Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson meets Welsh DJ Sasha.  

I have a collection of architecture and design books. I’ve managed to fill an entire table and am up to the third or fourth layer in addition to our studio library, which has a couple of thousand titles. They’re organised alphabetically and into sections: monographs, landscape books, novels etc. They’re mostly unread. I’ve got to have time to look at them. There’s a few I often return to: those by American architect Louis Kahn or Spanish sculptor Eduardo Chillida, whose work I always defer to when I’m feeling a bit stuck. 

A way to make me laugh is with any book by David Sedaris: I love his sense of humour. 

For the last five years, I’ve been focused on the structure of a building, studying everything from concrete examples to very fine filigree steel or timber ones. Can we do more with less material? Can we make buildings lighter and have less impact on the planet? Can we synthesise all of that and make something truly creative? I’m trying to steer my studio’s work away from plaster-wood walls to more characterful buildings and expressive structures. And I’m happy to apply whatever materials suit that. Recently I’ve been working on a house in the middle of the Australian desert that can be transported on the back of a truck and assembled in a very short period of time. 

In my fridge you’ll always find fresh minced meat for our dog Digby (a German pointer) and not much else. (I hate cooking and try to avoid it at all times.) I do keep a stash of yoghurt pots for between-meal snacks, and recently discovered a chocolate-flavoured version from Gippsland Dairy, with a syrup you pour in – nice and tart.

An indulgence I would never forgo is a great jacket. I’ve got way too many, around 35 in total, some nearly 40 years old. I’m not ready to lose any of them just yet. Whatever the newest one is tends to be my favourite.

The best way to spend $20 is on a bowl of pasta, with a side of really good bread and butter. I’m not that much of a foodie, but I love carbs. 

The podcast I’m listening to is If You’re Listening with Matt Bevan from ABC Radio Australia. Brilliant commentary on politics and current affairs.

The one artist whose work I would collect if I could is Polish visual artist Alicja Kwade, who specialises in large stone sculptures. I’d need a new home to display them in. I discovered her through a client in Melbourne and was drawn to her sense of gravity and combinations of materials: patinated copper, bronze and sandstone. They feel like where art is at the moment. 

My beauty routine is simple. For my face, I moisturise twice a day with Aesop’s facial hydrating cream. For my hair, I go to Fast Cut Barber. Just as advertised: five minutes for a trim! Aesop Camellia Nut Facial Hydrating Cream, £39 for 60ml

My signature scent is Terre d’Hermès. I like just about every fragrance I’ve ever smelt but this one makes me feel particularly fancy. It’s got a nice bottle too, so it looks good on the shelf. Terre d’Hermès Parfum, £123 for 75ml

In another life, I would have been a car designer. There was a golden era in the ’70s that I’m especially enamoured with: the time of the Lotus Esprit and Porsche 928. The Citroëns at that time were beautiful too. If I could design my dream car, I’d definitely do a sports car, something very plain, probably in silver – my favourite colour – with a short bonnet and big back. And electric, because I like that sense of responsibility to the planet. 

When I need to feel inspired, I look to contemporary art, particularly sculpture. I love the White Rabbit Gallery in Sydney, which specialises in contemporary Chinese art. Some of the works there blow my mind: a motorcycle crocheted from fine wire and fruit crates carved from solid marble blocks. I remember running through the Botanic Gardens with a friend once and seeing an abstract steel sculpture by Paul Selwood that stopped me in my tracks. It had everything I’d been trying to achieve with my architecture. I went on to do one of my most famous pieces of work, a residential project in Sydney’s Chippendale neighbourhood, a “piece of sculpture to be lived in” called Indigo Slam. 

The thing I couldn’t do without is my black spiral-bound sketchbook and Artline 0.2 fineliners. I’ve made about 100 sketchbooks since the ’80s. They’re full of ideas that bubble around in my head. I write in there, sketch in there and sometimes paint in there. I try to draw every day. If I don’t have that creative outlet, I start to feel unsettled. Artline Fineliner sketch artist pens, £11.99 for eight, amazon.co.uk

I’ve recently rediscovered the joy of running, having returned to my daily jogging routine after a year out due to a knee injury. I love feeling fit and the meditation running provides, and what’s nice is that I always run with friends. I like to do two longer runs a week, about 13km to 15km down by the water and then right under the harbour bridge. Other times I go a bit rogue; it’s a good way to explore the city.

My favourite building is the Church of Santa Maria in Marco de Canaveses, Portugal, designed by Álvaro Siza Vieira in the late 1990s. It’s almost modern, almost classical, almost symmetrical, and completely unexpected. 

If I could design a building without limits, it would resemble a Japanese temple. I don’t love big, big, big. I like small, very detailed structures. It would have a timber roof and copper cladding over it, use only unpainted and natural materials, and would be so well. engineered it would be impossible to work out how it stands. I’d build it on an island or the side of a big mountain. We live in a hot, temperate climate, so I often dream of snow.

The work of art that changed everything for me was a series of six paintings by Australian artist Mike Parr, On the Marble Cliffs. He’s best known for his performance art and social and political commentary, but he also does portraits of himself that are a bit weird. I came across this series 15 years ago at SCAF (Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation) in Paddington and instantly fell in love. I bought one at the time and then went back for the others; we’ve integrated them into our last couple of homes; I look at them every day. It’s a strange thing that when you become familiar with something, your viewpoint continues to change.

Whenever I travel somewhere new, I like to “gift” myself an experience instead of bringing something home. A couple of years ago I was in New York and bought tickets to see Blondie perform in a tiny club in Chelsea. It was amazing – she’s so cool.

The best bit of advice I ever received was from fellow Australian architect Glenn Murcutt’s 2002 Laureate acceptance speech: “You must start off the way you would like to finish – for every compromise you knowingly make, the resultant work will represent your next client.”