[3] He studied at the College of Environmental Design at the University of California, Berkeley, graduating with a degree in architecture in 1965, before undertaking a master of arts in sculpture the following year.
The campus was at the centre of the 1960s counterculture, and Grounds became part of a friendship group that included some of the key figures of that time, such as Ken Kesey, Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, hanging out at the City Lights Bookstore.
As part of a politically active group in Berkely, Joan and Marr wanted to escape America after Ronald Reagan became Governor of California.
[1][3] After a spell in Ghana, he was offered a job by Robin Boyd to lecture in architecture at the University of Sydney, starting in 1968.
Not long afterwards, he co-founded the art workshop Tin Sheds in the university grounds with Donald Brook[3] and his wife Joan.
In 1987, he returned to the U.S. to live, in order to marry his "childhood sweetheart", but the relationship failed (according to Grounds, because he "couldn't handle" it, with her four children from a previous marriage).
[1] He said in a 2015 interview that he loved making art, but did not enjoy the social aspect of it; he would not even attend the opening of his first solo exhibition at Watters.
[2] He died on 25 March 2021, aged 90, after living for some years on a property near Tanja, New South Wales, in a house with an environmental design reflecting his principles.