Originally from New Zealand and now deeply connected to the Gold Coast, my path into building design has always been driven by more than simply creating beautiful designs. With a Bachelor of Building Design and a QBCC Medium Rise Building Design licence, I spent the early part of my career working as a Design Manager for developers and builders, learning not only how buildings come together, but how people actually experience the places we create. Nearly a decade ago, I founded Formspace Building Design as an opportunity to pursue that thinking more personally — to create work with greater individuality, purpose and emotional connection.

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A defining part of that journey has been my passion for disability and inclusive design. What began as an interest in creating better and more dignified homes for people with complex needs developed into advocacy and ultimately led Formspace to become an NDIS Registered Provider. For me, accessibility should never feel clinical or like an afterthought. A home can support independence, safety and care while still giving someone beauty, personality and a genuine sense of pride in where they live. That belief remains one of the strongest emotional drivers behind my work.

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Solo travel, and perspective, has probably been the single greatest influence on the way I see design.

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I have been fortunate to travel extensively through very different parts of the world, and I have always been drawn less to the familiar places and more toward those that feel raw, historic, culturally intense or difficult to reach. I find myself absorbing places — the colours of each continent, the way buildings age, the materials people use, the relationship between a structure and the landscape around it, and even the way light falls interacts with space. Long after I have left somewhere, those things tend to remain with me.

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Morocco and the Mediterranean opened my eyes to courtyards, arches, filtered light, textured rendered walls and an extraordinary use of warm, imperfect materials. In Bolivia, particularly La Paz and the Altiplano, I became fascinated by deep reds, ochres and earthen colours, immense landscapes and buildings that often feel almost monolithic in their simplicity. Peru gave me another appreciation for stone, permanence and the way the built environment can feel inseparable from the terrain surrounding it. Solo travelling through places such as India, Algeria, Egypt and China exposed me to completely different ideas again — ornament, symmetry, ancient craftsmanship, weathering, scale and buildings carrying generations of human history.

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What has affected me most is that none of these places feel designed from the same rulebook. They have their own identity because they have grown from their climate, their materials, their history and their people. That has had an enormous influence on how I approach my own work here in Australia. I don't want to simply reproduce a style I have seen overseas; I am far more interested in taking a feeling, a colour, a texture, a proportion or a memory and allowing it to become something new in an Australian context.

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Some of those influences appear quietly, through light or texture. Others have shaped entire projects. The warm Mediterranean forms, earthy finishes, deep shadows and sense of escape that eventually found their way into many designs I produce today, from years of absorbing places very different to home. To then see design produced from me, born from those influences, go on to receive national recognition was incredibly meaningful to me — not so much because of the awards, but because it reinforced my belief that personal experience can become part of the language of a building.

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That curiosity extends to the Australian landscape as well. Having worked across the Gold Coast, South East Queensland and throughout Australia, I have designed for coastal and canal environments, regional towns, rural properties, hinterland landscapes and dense urban settings. As an HIA GreenSmart Professional, I am particularly conscious of climate, orientation, landscape and the long-term responsibility that comes with creating something new. I believe good design should belong to where it is placed rather than being imposed upon it.

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I have also always had a fascination with making and building. Had I not become a building designer, I probably would have become a carpenter. I spent time at trade school and was drawn to construction long before it became my career. At 17, I achieved a State High Distinction in Senior Graphics and Technical Studies in Queensland, an early indication of where that interest would eventually lead.

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Away from work, that same curiosity tends to follow me. I have a fascination with old art and objects that carry history, a growing record collection, a love of 4x4 touring, camping and disappearing into nature. I think there is a common thread through all of it — I am drawn to things that have character, history, imperfection and a story behind them.

At home, life is shared with my two beautiful chihuahuas, Ebony and Jane, who are a constant reminder that the smallest things often occupy the largest part of our hearts.

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Ultimately, I think my work is driven by curiosity and empathy. I am interested in understanding who someone is, what they have lived through, what they value and what they hope their life might become through building design. Whether designing a family home, an accessible residence or something entirely unconventional, I want the outcome to feel deeply connected to the people it belongs to and the place in which it sits — considered, expressive and unmistakably theirs.