Businesses often miss a HUGE opportunity when they start designing their next workplace. Often jumping in and trying to solve the immediate problem, they either start scribbling on floor plans or heading straight to market to see what the best leasing deal is. And while both activities are part of the process, they are not where organisations should start. This approach will leave your business with a short-term fix, rather than looking at the long-term view of the horizon. The first chapter of my book The Next Workplace; Designing Dynamic Environments that Inspire Human Potential, and the fir ..read more

Introducing plants into our indoor environments can have an incredible impact on health, wellbeing and general disposition.  Biophilic Design has been gaining traction in the design industry for several years now, and if you’re not familiar with this term, its essentially describing the innate human connection that we have with our natural world.  And in relation to our indoor environments, it is, in essence bringing the outside in.  Which is the perfect segway to introduce today's guest, Ryan McQuerry of Auckland based interior plantscape firm, Outside In.  As budding entr ..read more

“So, who are you working for?”   Working with clients to support them in the early phases of working out what their next workplace is going to look like, how it will work and more importantly how it will enable their people to work, requires me to start conversations that invite teams and employees to share their views on their ideal future workplace.   One of the questions that I get asked frequently at the outset of this process is, “So who are you working for?”  The concern that many leaders have is, that if I’m asking their people what they want, that they are then somehow e ..read more

Let me know if any of these resonate for you… are you feeling overwhelmed, under the pump, stressed, completely time poor and like there aren’t enough hours in the day, which is leaving you totally exhausted and easily distracted...? Sounding familiar? Well, you are not alone. My guest today Dr Kristy Goodwin is here to tell us that thanks to our technology that has pervaded every corner of our lives, we are now living and working in ways that are completely incongruent with our neurobiology. Dr Kristy has made multiple appearance here on the podcast and with the release of her latest book, De ..read more

Creating workplaces that inspire the human potential of those who inhabit them is a deep purpose for me.  The opportunity to inspire the leaders of businesses to take that extra step, to create something special and unique for their people and their business, just lights me up.   So, when I first met today’s guests, Claire & Sophie from the Serenity Collective back in 2019, it was love at first sight!    These two ladies have brought together their skills in innovation, learning design, change and community building to create the most beautiful community of humans, focu ..read more

Those who flow as life flows know they need no other force Lao Tzu Ever wondered what it would be like for your life to feel completely effortless? Like you just breezed through your days, without hustling, striving, or pushing? Like you just moved with ebb and flow of the world around you, yet still got to where you want to go? Embracing the quietness of the festive break, I had the space and time to reconnect with myself and realign my actions with those of the life I want to lead. A truly liberating thought. Each year at this time I work my way through my Live a Life by Design workbook, che ..read more

I wrote a book!!! “The Next Workplace: Designing Dynamic Environments that Inspire Human Potential” is only a few short weeks away from being out in the world.   I have been writing this book for the past 4 years and researching it my whole career.  Workplace design and the role that our environments play in enabling us to live our best lives is a conversation that I am incredibly passionate about and I am so thrilled to finally be able to share this passion with the world.   Writing a book is not for the faint hearted, and as you can probably tell from the fact that it has take ..read more

When I got the opportunity to sit down with Paul Edwards the General Manager of Strategy and Customer at Mirvac, I couldn’t just end our conversation only having explored one aspect of what is a very large business! So welcome back for Part 2 of our conversation, The Art of Placemaking.   Mirvac is one of Australia’s largest commercial landlords, with their offering covers Retail, Office, Industrial and Build-to Rent.    The COMUNiTI team and I have recently completed the new workplace for APA, occupying 4,500sqm in Mirvac’s 80 Ann St building.  This is an impressive buildi ..read more

2.5years ago, in the beginnings of a pandemic, I decided that I should launch my podcast.  100 episodes on and here we are! ? A LOT has changed in this time.  We’ve lived [and are living] through a pandemic, completely turned our idea of work upside down, questioned why we even need a workplace and battled so many more questions than we’d care to answer! Over the past 100 episodes this podcast has been an integral part of my own journey in navigating this tumultuous time.  It has seen me transform not only my ideas on design, the workplace and the role that we play in supporting ..read more

I am taking a quick break for a couple of weeks and I wanted to share with you some of the listener favourites from the back catalogue. If you haven't had a chance to listen to this one previously, or you're new here, I hope you enjoy this one! I will be back with fresh new episodes in a couple of weeks! Our environments have a HUGE impact on how we feel. This is the whole business that I’m in, designing and delivering workplaces that enable the strategic goals, vision and operational performance of a business.  But it’s not just limited to our corporate workplaces. When you apply that sa ..read more