Jiri Lev


Jiri Lev is an Australian building and urban designer, working in the field of sustainable public, residential and disaster-relief architecture.
Lev's works are known for their highly varied, locally appropriate architectural style, rigorous application of sustainable design principles and prolific use of natural, near-raw and locally sourced construction materials, such as timber, stone, hempcrete, canite or clay and lime products.
He teaches sustainable and resilient architecture in lectures, workshops and writing. Promoting regionally specific architectural design, he often refers to vernacular architecture and the principles of new urbanism, rejecting globalised design trends as destructive to genius loci.

Biography

Lev was born in Czechia to parents Jiri Loew, Czech architect, academic and politician and Lydie Loewova, architect. Prior to the Velvet Revolution the family was persecuted by the communist regime.
He first established his multidisciplinary design practice in Prague in 1998. In 2005 he moved to Australia, where he studied architecture at the University of Newcastle under Richard Leplastrier and Kerry and Lindsay Clare.
In 2014 Lev founded ArchiCamp, an irregular grassroots gathering of accomplished architects and architecture students, introducing the concept of loosely organised, guerilla style events, focused on learning and invited architectural intervention within disadvantaged or disaster-stricken rural communities.
In response to the 2019-20 Australian bushfires Lev established Architects Assist, a professional organisation of architects and architecture students providing pro bono assistance to the community, serving as a "platform for equitable access to sustainable and resilient architecture." By February 2020 the organisation represented over two thousand members.
In early 2020 Lev revealed his plans for a new model settlement in Tasmania addressing the housing and environmental crises. The development proposal was loosely inspired by the cohousing and ecovillage movement as well as traditional European settlements.