A Different Starting Point

Most interior design begins with a concept - an image, a style, a vision of how something should look. The designer sources new materials to match that vision, and what exists is removed to make way for it.

My approach inverts this entirely.

I begin with what you already have: the timber benchtop your children grew up leaning against, the odd elements that make your space unique, the objects that connect you to people and moments that matter. Through conversation and collaboration, we discover what wants to stay, what carries meaning, and how spatial arrangements might better serve the relationships and rhythms of your daily life.

This isn’t about making do or compromise. It’s about creating spaces that are more beautiful, more meaningful, and more authentically yours than anything imposed from outside could ever be.

Why This Matters

Through my doctoral research, I uncovered something troubling: conventional interior design operates within what I call the Interior Design Waste Cycle - a self-reinforcing system in which media imagery, commercial interests, and the linking of personal identity to consumption drive constant replacement of functional materials.

The numbers are staggering. Australia’s 10 million private kitchens are replaced on average every 15-20 years, with most materials going to landfill. But the environmental cost is only part of the story.

Every replacement cycle erases the accumulated histories embedded in materials - the marks of daily life, the patina of use, the physical evidence of a family’s story. In their place, we install spaces designed primarily for efficiency and display: kitchens optimised for workflow rather than gathering, surfaces chosen to resist the traces of life rather than welcome them.

We’ve created spaces that look like the magazines but feel empty of meaning.

The Alternative

This approach requires a different kind of conversation. Aesthetics and functionality matter, of course. But I bring more than that - I consider how things are made, where materials come from, what happens when they are discarded, and how design shapes the relationships between people and their material world. You bring the knowledge of your life, your space, and what matters to you. From there, we design together.

The Bigger Picture

This approach offers more than beautiful, meaningful spaces for individual clients. It represents a fundamental reimagining of what interior design can be: a practice that addresses environmental crises and social disconnection simultaneously, that values authentic connection over consumption, that creates spaces capable of holding and honouring the fullness of our lives.

After thirty years of conventional practice and three and a half years of research, I can’t unsee what I’ve learned. I can’t return to designing spaces that look good but feel hollow, that generate waste while erasing meaning.

If this resonates with you, I’d love to start a conversation.