Bespoke Careers Podcast

Peter Maddison is the founding director of Maddison Architects and for 108 episodes was the host of Grand Designs Australia. He’s been called Australia’s most recognisable architect.

He’s a Life Fellow of the Australian Institute of Architects, a winner of the Institute’s National President’s Prize, and his practice has completed more than 300 projects, from family homes to some of Melbourne’s best-known bars.

This conversation covers Robin Boyd and The Australian Ugliness, the brick Peter pulled from a demolition site, failing Year 12 and getting into architecture the hard way, designing his first house for his mum, what twelve years on Grand Designs did to his practice, why only 5% of Australian homes involve an architect, and what makes a great architect.

Hosted by Rosie Morley, Principal at Hassell and the new Australian host of the Bespoke Careers Podcast.

Recorded at the Stylecraft showroom, 379 Collins Street, Melbourne.

The Bespoke Careers Podcast Australia is brought to you by Bespoke Careers, specialist recruiters for architecture and design and the Australian Institute of Architects.

We’ve wrapped season one of the Bespoke Careers Podcast. 42 episodes, from architecture students right up to institute presidents.Here's some of the best advice that stuck with us. Seven ideas worth hearing, from 196 years of combined experience.

Sabrina Klor, CEO of 10Design, on why a well-run business matters as much as the design. She moved from running projects to the commercial side and now leads a 400-person practice.

Chris Williamson, co-founder of Weston Williamson + Partners and RIBA President, on why architects are losing influence and why young architects should pick up the phone.

Keir Regan-Alexander, founder of Arka Works and OmniChat, on becoming essential in a profession AI is about to change.

Simon Allford, co-founder of AHMM and past RIBA President, on why the profession needs to look after its people properly.

Kathryn Gustafson, Founder of Gustafson Porter+Bowman on starting small, trading skills and the mentors who shaped her career. She started out in fashion.

Thomas Rowntree, architecture content creator, on using social media to get noticed before the interview.

Forth Bagley, Principal at KPF, on delayed gratification and taking charge of your own career.

James Zagari is the co-founder of EST Lighting, an Australian lighting company he established in 2016 after a career that began almost by accident with a sales role at Philips Lighting.

In this episode, James talks about the unexpected path that led him into lighting, why lighting can be difficult to explain until you experience it, and what gets lost when it is brought into a project too late. He also shares what it was like moving from employee to founder, building EST with former colleagues, growing a team, and creating a showroom designed as an experience rather than simply a place to display products.

We explore the relationship between lighting, architecture and interiors, the role of procurement and relationships in bringing projects to life, Australian-made lighting, the impact of AI on the industry, and the career lessons James has picked up over 10 years of running EST.

Download the 2026 Global Salary Guide: https://www.bespokecareers.com/salary-guide/Muyiwa Oki is an architect at Mace and was President of RIBA from 2023 to 2025, the institute's youngest and first Black president, elected after a grassroots campaign that started in a WhatsApp group.He studied at Sheffield, did his Part 3 with RIBA North West, and worked at Glenn Howells Architects in Birmingham and Grimshaw in London before moving to Mace, where he works the front end of projects with public and private clients. During his term he set up the workplace and wellbeing task force and the RIBA's AI advisory group, and pushed the institution on pay, access to the profession and level 7 funding.

Illya Azaroff calls architecture his side gig. He's also the 2026 president of the American Institute of Architects and has spent 30 years responding to disasters around the world.His father arrived in the US as a displaced war refugee from Ukraine, and Illya grew up at a dinner table where hunger was a firsthand memory. That upbringing led to a degree in geography, then a career in disaster mitigation, and now the presidency of a 100,000-member institution.We get into what the presidency is like from the inside, why his kids are the reason he ran, the ethos he borrowed from the Kalinago people in the Caribbean, why nearly half of small businesses never reopen after a disaster, and the message he wants every architect to hear: you are more powerful to your community than you realize.

Shajay Bhooshan is an Associate Director at ZHA Architects and co-founder of ZHA CODE, the practice's computation and design research group, now 28 people inside a studio of around 500.

He studied at the AA's Design Research Laboratory, where he still teaches, and completed his PhD with the Block Research Group at ETH Zurich. His work spans high performance geometry, robotic fabrication, game engines and participatory design, including the 3D printed concrete bridge Striatus.

Scott Clement has seen thousands of portfolios. He doesn't want to see yours.Scott is the CEO of Revel Architecture and Design, a San Francisco firm that grew headcount 50% in 18 months and is sitting right at the 60-person point where he says firms start to break. We get into what an architecture CEO does all day, why Revel grows its leaders instead of hiring them in, the Colliers fit-out that ended with a giant bar the client insisted they didn't want, and the phone call that came 14 hours before we recorded.

Cara Stizza and Robyn Levin run Wildflower, a Melbourne studio that owns the furniture side of a project. Selection, procurement, coordination, everything down to the cutlery in the drawers. Cara built and grew an interior design practice before this. Robyn spent years inside one of Australia's leading furniture brands. Together they sit between the creative eye and the part where it all has to get built, on budget, and hold up.This one's about the business of design. How they cut about a third out of a build-to-rent budget without gutting the design. Why furniture gets wedged in early, before it turns into an afterthought. What they look for when they hire for a job that's half taste, half operations. And what stays human when AI can knock out a mood board in seconds.

Want to work at amazing studios like Made For? You can browse our live jobs here: https://www.bespokecareers.com/jobs/At Bespoke we work with 1,000+ firms every year across the UK, US and Australia to find them great candidates just like you. Want to know where you salary sits in the market? Download our global Salary Guide: https://www.bespokecareers.com/salary-guide

Mitch Jones built Made For, a Melbourne workplace strategy, architecture and interiors studio, without a design degree. Ten years on it's a team of twenty with a client list that runs from Starbucks to Autex to Yarra Valley Water.

He started it with his wife Cara in a rundown Collingwood warehouse, and in this episode he's straight about the whole ten years. Why he's kept every pitch he's ever made. Why he wants to own less than half his own company. The hiring mistake he keeps making and regretting. How he reads a business before he designs a single desk.

We get into what changed for offices after Covid, why he runs a studio that's built to not look like an office, and the part of the job he's certain AI won't touch.

"Do you need a design degree to run a design business? You don't. In fact, I've got no degree at all."

Selasi Setufe came out of architecture school with two degrees and couldn't get a job. Two interviews in two years. An unpaid internship in Slovenia she'd "highly not advise." So she stopped trying to fit the mould and built her own route through the profession.Selasi is a co-director of Black Females in Architecture, the network she co-founded in 2018 that now runs to a global membership of more than 400. She's a registered architect, a Public Practice alumna, and a Principal Project Officer in the GLA's Place Unit, after years as a Senior Architect at Be First in Barking and Dagenham. In 2022 she was awarded an MBE for services to diversity in architecture.In this conversation she gets into the two years she spent outside architecture after qualifying, the advice from Elsie Owusu about being the change rather than trying to fix a broken system, why she calls strategic work "architecture with a big A," what architecture education does to the students it can't accommodate, how BFA grew from a group chat into a social enterprise, and why she hesitated before accepting an MBE with "British Empire" in the name.