Dalton's body of work includes a number of domestic and commercial projects located in Queensland, Australia, where his architectural practice was established.
Their architectural education and the design ethos at Theo Thynne and Associates had instilled in Dalton and Heathwood a climatic responsibility which they synthesised into their body of work.
Their houses featured wide-eave hipped roofs, sun hoods over lower storey windows, tightly placed verandahs and room layouts that regarded solar orientation and cross ventilation.
Further their houses eschewed traditional vernacular timber ornamentation instead utilising the structural forms as the architectural expression.
[17] At university Dalton was influenced by the writings and work of Richard Neutra, Sydney Ancher, Harry Seidler and more broadly, by Lewis Mumford's Culture of Cities and Rousseau and Romanticism.
Seidler's influence Robinson suggests, is in the structural expression, precision and finish, whilst Ancher's influence he argues is in his use of open planning, flat terraces, glass walls, low pitched roofs with wide overhangs and precise white structures which contrasted with the surrounding bush-lands.
[10] Robinson also suggests Peter Heathwood as a possible influence on Dalton, particularly in his use of texture and vernacular elements such as timber batten screening.
His built body of work occurs most densely in the Brisbane suburbs of Toowong, Kenmore, Chapel Hill, Fig Tree Pocket and Indooroopilly.
Selected works were widely published in Architecture in Australia, receiving numerous awards and recognition from the Royal Australian Institute of Architects.
These houses were typically simple stud framed, low pitched asbestos cement roofs, sliding glass external doors and louvred walls.
These houses featured climatic considerations including being raised off the ground for sub floor ventilation, wide eaved overhangs, boarded screens for sun control and reflective foil insulation.
Robinson suggests these houses still exhibit trademarks of Hayes and Scott so do not feature any strong style as such, remaining more anonymous.
[22] The 'linear houses' often had linear floor plans with the long side oriented north and low pitched roofs supported on three lines of steel beams which were visually emphasised.
Brickwork is bagged and painted white, which contrasted with the dark stained timbers expressed externally giving a warmer feeling to the house.
"[28] The origins of this thinking can be traced to his time at Hayes and Scott, Theo Thynne and Associates and his architectural education under Lucas and Cummings at Queensland University.
Dalton particularly attributes his climatic design philosophy to the teachings of Bruce Lucas, remembering, "we used to sit with our protractors working out the angle of the sun penetration".
"[31] In 1967, Dalton reports being dismissed from his role as Queensland correspondent to Architecture in Australia against a background of increasing tension from his place as mutineer within the Publications Committee.
[35] Additionally, he admonishes the scheming bureaucratic processes in which authorities allow for the development of cities (particularly in Brisbane),[36] as well as bluntly lambasting the lack of concern the profession in Australia has for the future, pleading for "foresight" in the midst of "hindsight and insight" and a framework for supposition and experimentation.
[37] From 1966 to 1972, feeling a sense of affinity with the activism of students he was exposed to through his position as a teacher at the University of Queensland's School of Architecture, John Dalton produced a series of pamphlets consisting of "images and text, original and sourced material on an eclectic range of topics" with an intention to instigate further student activism.
[31] As well as using his own, Dalton sourced material from student conventions, magazines, books and poems from a range of authors including Serge Chermayeff, Buckminster Fuller, Colin St. John Wilson, Aldo van Eyck, Warren Chalk, Edward de Bono and Gough Whitlam amongst others.
[34] Dalton's belief in the "art' of architecture over any sense of "scholarship" is evident in the processes that he adhered to and perhaps his artworks are an embodiment of this attitude.
[43] Even in his later life of semi-retirement, living in Lambtail Cottage, Allora from 1979, Dalton avidly continued producing artworks, pursuing painting, sculpting, photography, creating collages and drawing.