I was born in Beecroft, Sydney. It’s basically the suburbs. It was an amazing place to grow up — there were all these bush walks and the Forestry Commission. I learnt about timber and different types of ecosystems. Nature was such a powerful part of growing up, and it’s something I look forward to every day now — it’s such a key part of my existence. Sydney has been such an inspiration for my creativity, because Sydney is so diverse — it's a collision of all these different moments of history and architecture and culture, and I think all of those springboards have really been such an important catalyst for my creative career.

There was a juxtaposition of growing up in the burbs with nature, but then being transplanted into a city. They are two powerful, opposing moments, and I found inspiration in both sides. My dad was a mechanical engineer. Being dragged around building sites opened me up to another side of buildings: understanding that they are important organisms that humans interact with, either on a utilitarian level or something that could be quite powerful and life-changing.

I grew up as a skateboarder, and it was a huge part of my creative process. When you're skating, there's an appreciation of materials — the tactility and density are going to affect your speed. You're constantly adjusting to the properties of material. One of my favorites is the sound of the architecture, because you're using your wheels as a way of listening to the joints in tiles; the way it slides across timber or marble is a signal of how fast you're going. Skateboarding is such an incredible subculture, and the connection to an international community was really powerful. As a teenager, I realized that architecture can bond and create communities. Looking at a city through a skateboarder’s eyes is something I still do.

Travel is a way of changing my self-perception. My natural position is generally pretty reserved and more introverted. Being in New York for work, I ended up at Balthazar and started a conversation with a totally random couple next to me. I was like, ‘Whoa, I didn't think I would feel confident enough to do that.’ But in New York, that's just normal, right? What I love about travel is this amazing ability to surprise yourself, because you're doing something that you never thought you'd find yourself doing under normal circumstances.

A city is a massive cultivator for subcultures, which often drive trends or ideas because they're so pure. Skateboarding is one of the great outcomes of Sydney being a relatively modern city. You don't have skateboarders in Rome; you have skateboarders in new cities that have smooth surfaces. So the architecture cultivates a skateboarding community. And the skateboarding community has created a platform for incredible creatives, like Virgil Abloh, Jonah Hill, Pharrell Williams. So architecture and cities have a huge part to play in making sure that those subcultures continue to thrive.

Window. Because I'm six foot seven, the headrests are not tall enough, so I get a really sore neck leaning back. I need the side of the plane to sleep on.

The weird thing is that everywhere I go, I have the exact same bag packed — no matter if I'm going to work or going away. I've got all my cables; converters; a battery pack; pencils and pens of all different shades and tones and thicknesses; a ruler; papers. It's so that at any given time, I know that I've got a whole array of things in my kit.

We live in Tamarama, across from the beach. It's like we're on holidays all the time. I can just walk around in boardshorts and no one blinks an eye. Definitely the top of my list is probably MacKenzies Bay, across the road. It feels like a little sanctuary. To have a beach in Sydney which has amazing surf, a beautiful landscape, and where I can take a dog, is just my idea of heaven.

We did a project at the Royal Hotel in Sydney called Totti’s. It's a casual, Italian, family restaurant. I love going there. I finished work late one night and sat in the front bar, bumped into some mates, and had this beautiful meal. I was like, ‘This is like my perfect late dinner.’ It has such a colourful history as well, and it's so nice that it's become a place that everyone can go to. It's got such a wide appeal.

Centennial Park is an amazing thing to have on our doorstep in Sydney: to have that amount of real estate; microclimates and ecosystems; flora and fauna; but also places for exercise and events. There's so many nice communities there. I do the walk around the far perimeter with the dogs. And there's a section on the Randwick Racecourse side where there's a few dams and sandy knolls — it feels so foreign. I love that because it feels really wild.

My parents got married in a neighbourhood called Kirribilli; my sister and I did as well. It's the most enchanted little hidden pocket of beautiful grounds. Brett Whiteley was a huge part of my inspiration as a student, because I loved his drawings and the way he represented architecture. So we got married at Wendy Whiteley’s Garden a few years ago. It just feels so magical. For me that's a really special spot.

The Brett Whiteley studio in Surry Hills feels like you are stepping back in time to the grungy, artist side of Surry Hills. There's so much interesting history in that space — it feels like such a raw and authentic moment of Australian art history.

Home. 

There's so much enrichment and stimulation, and so much here that is so satisfying. The comfort and sense of homeliness most resonates with me. Sydney is such a good embodiment of all these different aesthetics and cultures, which are so hard to replicate in another city: the diversity and culture, food, architecture, landscape, climate.