Helen Tippett

Helen Tippett studied at The Hermitage and University of Melbourne. The recorded working language is English. The field of work recorded is architecture. Employment is recorded with Victoria University of Wellington and Australian National University. Distinctions recorded are Officer of the Order of the British Empire.

• Name — Helen Tippett • Birth Name — Helen Margaret O'Donnell • Born — 23 March 1933 • Birthplace — Warragul, Victoria, Australia • Died — 11 February 2004 • Place of death — Wellington, New Zealand • Occupation — * Architect • academic

Tippet was born Helen Margaret O'Donnell in Warragul, Victoria, Australia, on 23 March 1933. She was educated at Geelong Church of England Girls' Grammar School, The Hermitage, and went on to study architecture at the University of Melbourne in the early 1950s, where her peers' description of her work at this time reveals "a determination to solve problems of careful planning analysis and building production as part of the design process". She graduated with a Bachelor of Architecture (Honours) in 1954, and later completed a Master of Business Administration degree at Melbourne in 1974. She became engaged to George Henry King Tippett, a physician, in 1953. The couple married and they lived in Alice Springs for several years where George was a medical officer in charge of the Royal Flying Doctor Service, and then in London and Beirut where George pursued a career as an anaesthesiologist. The couple had three children, and later divorced.

After graduating from university, Tippett worked in the studio of Robin Boyd. After marriage, she began a mobile practice in northern and central Australia, as well as in Sydney and Melbourne. During her family's three years in Beirut, she worked on projects in the Middle East, dressing as a man when she visited building sites. Tippett's career in academia began in Melbourne in 1969, where she taught the course 'Design and Practice and Management'. In 1979, she moved to Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, where she was dean of Architecture at Victoria University of Wellington from 1980 to 1983 during the architecture school's early years, helping to set its tone alongside the first dean, Gerd Block. In this position she was the first woman professor of architecture in Australasia, and Victoria's first woman dean. She later returned to professional practice, co-founding The Architects Collaborative in Wellington. In 1989, Tippett became the first woman to be elected president of the New Zealand Institute of Architects. She was also influential in the New Zealand building industry, and her work resulted in New Zealand's first official building code, and the Building Act 1991. She helped to establish the National Association of Women in Construction (New Zealand).