“I have a knack for bringing second-order thinking to everything I do: seeing every possible outcome not in isolation but with its flow-on effects, and helping stakeholders to make better decisions as a result.”

Jacob 'Jake' Le Lievre is a highly regarded, lateral-thinking project leader who helped establish our Sydney practice in 2018. His breadth of knowledge, construction expertise and problem-solving prowess are central to our growing team’s success. Over the past decade, his architectural and masterplanning experience has spanned projects in many sectors, including: mixed-use, retail, commercial, health, hospitality, community, education, residential, and sport. Cross-disciplinary coordination, inclusivity and designing with Country are his cornerstones. His creative and collaborative design solutions are celebrated by his clients.

Jake’s an approachable all-rounder. In addition to his degrees in architectural design, his qualifications in construction management bring to his work the construction industry knowledge and project management skills to ensure complex projects run smoothly. Driven by insatiable curiosity, he describes himself as “a T-shaped person with a breadth of knowledge covering many disciplines, but with a highly developed and specific depth of knowledge in architecture.” Colleagues and clients appreciate his detailing skills, empathetic, user-focused design, and motivations around equity, accessibility and inclusivity. “With my life being affected by physical disability, I have a lot of empathy for the less abled, and try to champion universal design in my work,” he says.

Designing with Country is a particular passion. At University of Technology Sydney (UTS) he teaches humanitarian design to engineering students in collaboration with Engineers Without Borders. During 2023 they helped students work with the Yirrganydji people in Far North Queensland via the Dawul Wuru Aboriginal Corporation, identifying problems experienced by First Nations communities and custodians including Indigenous rangers and collaborating on effective design solutions. In 2024, they will shift their attention to Saibai Island of the Torres Strait Islands archipelago.