Cowan, considered by some as the godfather of architectural science, summed up the oxymoronic difficulty of combining science and art in architecture in the title of his memoir, A Contradiction in Terms. Nevertheless, a golden era of architectural science began: Alan and Sue Coldicutt in Melbourne, John Ballinger at UNSW, Steve Szokolay in Queensland, and Deborah White in Adelaide.
Following his completion of a B.Arch at Sydney University, Steve enrolled immediately in the DipBdgSc course also at Sydney University and so began a lifetime of work in architectural and building science.