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Yasmine Ghoniem's father left for Kuwait for what he said would be a couple of months. Seven months later, her mother still did not know if he was alive. He had arrived in Kuwait the day the Iraqis invaded. Yasmine was ten. Today, she is the founder and director of YSG Studio, was named Interior Designer of the Year 2025 by Vogue Living, and co-hosts ABC's Grand Designs Transformations.

This conversation goes somewhere most design podcasts do not. We talk about what it costs to build an award-winning practice while quietly building a family — including seven years of unexplained infertility before her daughter Sahara arrived. Yasmine's work is inseparable from her nomadic childhood across Kuwait, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Sydney, and she explains, for the first time, how that displacement became the foundation of everything she designs.

In this episode, we explore:

* Growing up mostly indoors in 50-degree heat, and how that shaped her relationship to light, materials, and a room's feeling

* Her father's seven months missing in Kuwait during the Gulf War, and the radio station her mother called for news of the missing

* Why the color of a childhood kitchen she hated still shows up in her work today

* Building "the Bible": the eight-pillar document she wrote so her team could learn what makes a project unmistakably hers

* Splitting from her sister's studio, Amber Road, and building YSG from scratch alongside her husband

* The performer who never left: dance, singing, an American Idol audition, and talking her way backstage at a choir she had no business joining

* Why YSG does zero marketing and treats Instagram as its website

* Seven years of unexplained infertility, and the dates she cannot explain — her studio's founding day and her daughter's birthday, worked out almost to the hour

* Hiring the final piece of her team, and finding out she was pregnant a month later

* What she wants her daughter Sahara to grow up knowing, and what "Build Beautiful" really means to her

Why this conversation matters

In an industry that markets glossy outcomes, Yasmine offers something rarer: an honest account of the private cost behind public success. Her story is a reminder that the most original creative work is rarely built on trend or formula — it comes from the specific, sometimes painful details of a life, translated into rooms other people get to live in.

About Yasmine

Yasmine Ghoniem is the founder and director of YSG Studio, the Sydney design practice she launched in February 2020 out of a former warehouse in Darlinghurst. Before YSG, she spent seven years running Amber Road with her sister, landscape architect Katy Svalbe. Born in Kuwait and raised between Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Sydney, Yasmine studied visual communications before earning a scholarship to the Savannah College of Art and Design, then worked in architecture in Portland, Oregon. YSG's work has been recognised by Architectural Digest and Australia's leading design industry awards, and Yasmine was named Interior Designer of the Year 2025 by Vogue Living. She co-hosts ABC's Grand Designs Transformations alongside Anthony Burke.

Season 3 is proudly supported by @tappeti fine crafted rugs + carpets

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The bank told Nicholas Karlovasitis they could not give him a business loan. No trading history. So he called back and told them he needed $30,000 for a pool party. An epic one. Just the once. They offered him $50,000. That was 18 years ago. Today, Design By Them — the studio Nicholas built with his co-founder Sarah Kay from a Newtown apartment — has a team of 35 and dealers across Dubai, the UK, the Netherlands, and the US. When their accountants recently asked about their exit strategy, Nicholas and Sarah walked out of the meeting laughing. They do not have one. They just really love what they do.

This conversation goes somewhere most design podcasts do not. We talk about what it means to be given the gift of choice — and what it costs to build a business that tries to pass that on to other people. Nicholas is the son of migrants who watched his mother count hours at a paper factory and his father work 16-hour days to pay off a home loan in four years. Everything he has built is quietly shaped by that. Including the royalty model that puts real money in the hands of Australian designers who have been treating their work as a side project for too long.

In this episode, we explore:

• Growing up as a child of migrants and what that instilled — the optimism, the relativity, and the lifelong obsession with a better future
• A conversation with his father in Year 7 that removed the burden of expectation and gave Nicholas the gift of choice
• Deciding on industrial design at 13, and why passing up a Qantas avionics engineering programme was the best decision he almost did not make
• Working school holidays at a paper factory with his mother — and the moment he understood what an hour of someone's labour was worth
• The pool party loan: how Design By Them was founded on $30,000 a bank was happy to hand over for an epic one-time event
• Building a furniture brand in a market that barely existed — and why 'if there's no industry for us, we'll create one' became the founding philosophy
• The white t-shirt principle: the early business advice that shaped how they thought about products, cashflow, and creative ambition
• The copied letterbox incident that sharpened their supply chain strategy and changed how they thought about protecting designers' work
• The real economics of manufacturing locally versus overseas — and why the debate almost always misses the most important argument
• Building a supply chain in China over five years, and what quality control actually looks like when you are doing it seriously
• Running a business by designers for designers — and why they put prices on their website when no one else did
• Exhibiting at 3 Days of Design Copenhagen and the patient, deliberate path to global reach
• Why Nicholas and Sarah walked out of a meeting with their accountants laughing: no exit strategy, no Porsche, just the work

Why this conversation matters

In a world where scaling fast is celebrated and soul is usually the first casualty, Nicholas Karlovasitis offers a different model. Design By Them has grown from two people to 35 without losing what it set out to be: a brand that pays designers properly, builds for the long term, and believes that clarity of purpose is not a luxury — it is the strategy. His story is also a reminder that the most meaningful businesses are often built not to be sold, but to outlast the people who started them.

About Nicholas

Nicholas Karlovasitis is the co-founder and creative director of Design By Them, the Sydney-based furniture design studio he built alongside Sarah Kay from a Newtown apartment in 2007. He studied industrial design at UTS, where he also taught for a period, and has spent nearly two decades championing Australian designers while pursuing global reach. Design By Them manufactures across China, Japan, Malaysia, Vietnam, India, the US, and Italy, operates a royalty model for the designers it represents, and is currently expanding into the UK, Netherlands, and US markets. Nicholas describes the business simply: it was built by designers, for designers. He still does not have an exit strategy.

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RESOURCES MENTIONED

Design By Them: designbythem.com

Instagram: @designbythem

3 Days of Design Copenhagen: 3daysofdesign.dk

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Your agent wants to sell. Your valuer wants the truth. And most people — designers, renovators, developers — never call the valuer. They call the agent, they trust the gut, they make decisions without one crucial piece of information: what will the market actually pay, with no skin in the game, before you've already spent the money. Belinda Botzolis has been the missing voice in that conversation for 17 years. She is done being missing.

Belinda Botzolis is the founding director of Add Value, a property valuation consultancy. She has inspected more than 15,000 Australian homes, assessed nearly $12 billion in real estate, and spent 17 years translating complex property and tax concepts into plain, actionable language — including the 2026 federal budget changes and the rarely-understood six-year capital gains tax rule.

This is a conversation for every designer, renovator, and developer who has ever made an expensive decision without a valuer in the room. About the ceiling on every property — the number the market won't cross regardless of how beautifully you design it. About demographic-led renovation strategy, the mistakes a bank valuer will never reward, and why the person with no stake in the outcome is sometimes the most important person you can have on your team.

In this episode, we explore:

• Why every property has a ceiling — and why crossing it in renovation is one of the most common and costly mistakes homeowners and developers make
• The demographic analysis Belinda runs before recommending any renovation: from kosher kitchens in Rose Bay to prayer rooms in Lakemba and courtyards in the inner west
• The 2026 federal budget decoded: what actually changed for investors, what's grandfathered, what to hold off on, and why Belinda compares the policy to a school group assignment
• How the property valuer fits inside the design team — and why most designers have never thought to include one
• Flipping vs. forever home: why the design rules are completely different depending on your exit strategy
• The budget blowout scenario: why a neutral valuer can sometimes say the things a designer can't — and why clients hear it differently from a third party
• The six-year CGT principal place of residence rule — and why Belinda used it herself
• Why the new negative gearing changes might make your primary home the most tax-efficient place to hold capital in the current landscape
• Investment property renovation strategy: why neutral and durable beats trendy and cheap every time
• Building a business on social media before going solo — and the grandmother story that explains her entire philosophy

Why this conversation matters

Property is where design and money converge. Most people make their biggest financial decisions without a valuer's perspective, relying instead on agents, friends, and gut instinct. Belinda Botzolis is changing that. In an industry where valuers are almost invisible to the people whose homes they assess, she is quietly doing something radical: explaining it clearly, accessibly, and without an agenda.

About Belinda

Belinda Botzolis is the founding director of Add Value, a property valuation consultancy. With 17 years of experience, a degree in Property Economics, and dual registration as a certified valuer and tax agent, she has valued nearly $12 billion in Australian real estate across residential, government acquisition, and investment work. She built her reputation online by translating complex property and tax concepts into plain, accessible language — driven by a belief that everyone deserves to understand the rules of the game they are already playing.

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Her water broke on the last day of filming The Great Gatsby. She had spent years inside Baz Luhrmann's creative world — researching Moulin Rouge in Paris, drinking absinthe in the streets, helping Catherine Martin dress Beyoncé, designing over 200 rugs for the Faena Hotel in New York. And she did all of it as the black sheep of a Lebanese-Australian family where everyone else became a doctor, a surgeon, or an engineer. She was the one who took the detour. As it turned out, the detour was the whole thing.

Silvana Azzi Heras is the founder of House of Heras, a Sydney-based textile and interior design studio known for its maximalist, emotionally rich patterns rooted in folklore, flora, and cultural memory. Before founding her studio, she spent over a decade as head designer at Bazmark — Baz Luhrmann and Catherine Martin's creative company — working across Moulin Rouge, The Great Gatsby, La Bohème on Broadway, and The Get Down for Netflix.

This is a conversation about what it means to follow an instinct when the world expects something safer from you. About heritage and culture as the raw material of a creative life. About the phone call that changes everything — and what happens when you finally say yes to yourself. About maximalism as a philosophy, not just an aesthetic. And about the strange, glittering, unglamorous work of building something entirely your own.

In this episode, we explore:

• Growing up Lebanese-Australian: arriving in Sydney at age two, navigating identity, and returning to Beirut at 35 to understand her parents' resilience
• Being the 'black sheep' youngest of five — how family pressure shaped the long road to design
• Starting with a Bachelor of Welfare Studies, meeting her husband there, and going back to university as a mature-age student to study design
• The phone call that changed everything: how a university lecturer put her name forward for Baz Luhrmann and Catherine Martin's studio
• Life inside Bazmark — researching Moulin Rouge! in Paris, drinking absinthe, walking the streets, and building a world from scratch
• The Gatsby baby — her water breaking on the last day of filming The Great Gatsby
• Going to Cannes twice and the Oscars twice, including helping Catherine Martin dress Beyonce
• Designing over 200 rugs for the Faena Hotel New York, in collaboration with Peter Mikic
• Founding House of Heras — filling a gap for maximalist, culturally rich design in a minimalist market
• Pre-visualisation as a design practice, the art of knowing when to stop, and why there are no shortcuts

Why this conversation matters

In a design world that often rewards restraint and minimalism, Silvana Azzi Heras is doing something rarer: making work that holds memory, carries culture, and takes emotional risks. Her story is also a reminder that the creative path is rarely linear — that detours, late starts, and unexpected phone calls are often the beginning of something extraordinary.

About the guest

Silvana Azzi Heras is the founder and creative director of House of Heras, a Sydney-based design studio specialising in textiles, rugs, wallpaper, and interior design. She spent over a decade as head designer at Bazmark, the production company of Baz Luhrmann and Catherine Martin, working across some of the most visually ambitious films and productions of the past two decades. Her textile collections are stocked internationally and she has designed for the Faena Hotel New York, Designer Rugs, Milton & King, and CB2 in the United States. House of Heras is expanding into commercial interior design, and a new Axminster rug collection is due for release later in 2026.

RESOURCES MENTIONED

House of Heras website: houseofheras.com

Instagram: @houseofheras and @silvanaazziheras

Designer Rugs: designerrugs.com.au

Milton & King wallpaper: miltonandking.comCB2 

(US): cb2.com

Faena Hotel New York: faena.com/new-york

Peter Mikic: mikicdesign.com

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Helen Lynch and Karyn McRae, co-founders of McRae & Lynch Design, have been in business together for thirty years. They met on the first day of design school, started taking on projects while they were still studying, and have since built one of Sydney's most quietly enduring interior design practices, spanning residential, medical, hospitality, and even cruise ship interiors for Carnival.

In this episode of Build Beautiful, Helen and Karyn share what three decades of partnership has taught them about resilience, reinvention, and charging your worth. It is a conversation about friendship as foundation, the unglamorous parts of building a creative business, and what it really means to design for the long game.

In this episode, we explore:

• How a chance hand wave on the first day of design school became a thirty-year creative partnership
• Helen's path from primary school teaching into interior design, and Karyn's beginnings in architectural drafting at Inscand Design
• What makes a design partnership actually work, and why mutual respect, shared values and morning therapy sessions matter more than rigid role descriptions
• Designing cruise ships for Carnival across five years: dry dock, IMO certification, boiler suits, and being the only women on the ship
• Why they had to rebuild the business from scratch after the cruise ship era ended, and what that humility taught them
• The reinvention behind going back to study during COVID to become registered building designers, and why interior designers still fight for recognition in Australia
• The two-year nudge from their business coach into podcasting, the imposter syndrome that nearly stopped them, and the moment they realised authenticity outperforms polish
• Going on Aussie Build for Channel 9 Life, finding sponsors in six weeks, and what television taught them about being themselves on camera
• Charging your worth: the spreadsheet that changed everything, the twenty percent contingency rule, and why a one hundred percent strike rate means you are undercharging
• What 'build beautiful' means when you have spent thirty years designing for other people's lives, and why the goal is shoulders dropping at the front door

Why this conversation matters

In an industry obsessed with overnight success and polished feeds, Helen and Karyn offer something quieter and rarer: a thirty-year case study in patience, partnership and reinvention. Their story matters now because the path they walked, slow growth, hard pivots, going back to study late, learning to charge what you are worth, is the one most creative business owners are actually on, even if no one talks about it.

About the guests

Helen Lynch and Karyn McRae are the co-founders of McRae & Lynch Design, a Sydney-based interior design and building design practice they have run together for thirty years. Their work spans high-end residential, medical and dental fit-outs, hospitality and clubs, and a five-year body of cruise ship interior work for Carnival. They are also the hosts of Two Gins in a Designer's Perspective, which won Best Design Podcast at the 2025 Australian Podcast Awards, and recently appeared as the design duo on Aussie Build for Channel 9 Life. Both are newly registered building designers, certified to work on Class 2 buildings, an accreditation few interior designers in Australia hold.

RESOURCES MENTIONED

McRae & Lynch Design: mcraelynchdesign.com.au

Instagram: @mcraelynchdesign

Two Gins in a Designer's Perspective podcast (Best Design Podcast, 2025)

Aussie Build, Channel 9 LifeDesign Centre Enmore (formerly the Randwick design school referenced in the episode)

Design Institute of Australia (DIA)

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For years, she was running her architecture practice on passion alone. The work was good. The clients were happy. And the money wasn't working. She described it as being "happy but broke" — a phrase so clean and so honest that it stopped being hers the moment she said it, because everyone who builds something creative knows exactly what she means.

Brooke Aitken is an architect and the founder of Brooke Aitken Design, a studio she has led for 21 years. She works alongside her sister and a team that has come to feel like family — a flat, trust-based structure held together by craft, devotion, and a slowly-earned understanding of what it takes to stay financially and emotionally viable in creative work.

This is one of the most generous conversations Build Beautiful has had. About what longevity actually costs. About how you learn to charge your worth after years of not. About the strange rhythm of a creative life — the wearing of every hat, the love that keeps you going, and the business that had to grow up alongside the art. For anyone building something slowly, with heart: this one is for you.

In this episode, we explore:

• Why Brooke walked away from a place in medical school to pursue architecture — and the moment she “cut my hair off, dyed it white blonde” and went all in
• Inside the legendary DCM years: being project architect on the interiors of the Melbourne Museum at the very start of her career
• Founding Brooke Aitken Design in 2004 with no business training, no marketing, and clients already waiting at the door
• “I was happy but broke” — what rock bottom actually looked like ten years in, while going through IVF, undiagnosed endometriosis, building her own home, and paying her staff before herself
• The Business of Design podcast moment that changed everything — and why Brooke now sits in a peer mastermind comparing real figures every six months
• Daniel Priestley’s “11 touchpoints” rule, and how Brooke rebuilt her entire marketing engine around it after a decade of hiding her work behind bad photography
• “Soft Modernism,” slow architecture, and why she’ll usually fight to save a 70s building rather than knock it down
• Inside the studio: a sister, a “design alumni” WhatsApp group, design charrettes, and why “no one has just one problem”
• “Systems will set you free” — the Asana templates and operating system every creative business owner should steal
• ChatGPT, Midjourney and how an architect known for craft is quietly experimenting with AI
• What she would tell her younger self — and why she still insists success “hasn’t happened yet”

Why this conversation matters

In a design industry that polishes every portfolio and hides every struggle, Brooke Aitken does something rare: she tells the truth. For any architect, designer or creative business owner who has ever wondered why beautiful work isn’t translating into a beautiful life, this is the conversation that names the gap — and shows what’s possible on the other side.

About Brooke

Brooke Aitken is the founder and Principal of Brooke Aitken Design, a Sydney-based studio she has led for over 20 years from her base in Ultimo. A registered architect and interior designer — one of the few in the country who delivers both — she is known for an aesthetic she calls “Soft Modernism”: contemporary, considered, deeply liveable spaces shaped by the brief, the building and the way people actually live. Her work spans heritage homes in Sydney’s east, sustainable rejuvenations of mid-century houses, and award-winning international projects in San Francisco and Palo Alto. She is also the founder of Rill + Stone, a homewares brand whose internationally awarded rug collection is made in collaboration with Tsar Carpets.

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There's a version of living with art that most people never reach. They buy something. They hang it. They look at it sometimes. And then there's the other version — where the piece you chose changes the way you see the room, then the way you see yourself, and then, if you're lucky, the way you move through the world. Kym Elphinstone has spent her career in that second version, and she's working to bring other people there.

Kym Elphinstone works across art, cultural strategy, and storytelling, advising collectors and collaborating with designers on how to bring art into spaces with intention. Her work sits at the intersection of intuition and meaning — built on the belief that art is not an accessory to life, but a reflection of it.

This is a conversation about the difference between buying art and living with it. About how to start a collection without being paralysed by the decision. About why the best choices are rarely about taste and almost always about feeling. For anyone who has ever stood in front of a piece of art and felt something shift — this one is for you.

In this episode, we explore:

• Kym's unlikely path from law in London to a life in contemporary art
• The "baptism by fire" years at MCA Australia working on 12–15 exhibitions a year
• Founding Articulate sixteen years ago — with the Biennale of Sydney as first client
• Why she wrote Collecting and Living with Art — and the foreword by John Kaldor
• "There are no wrong answers" — the biggest myth about how to start collecting
• Walking into a gallery for the first time — why gallerists genuinely want you there
• Fostering, not owning: collecting as a form of custodianship for future generations
• The King's College London study proving art physically changes us — heart rate, cortisol, inflammation
• Understanding the value of art — artist reputation, galleries, career milestones and the market
• Why emerging artists need collectors most, and how to spot a singular point of view
• Sydney Contemporary as "time travel for art" — 45 minutes to take the pulse of the sector
• Advice for designers and architects: commission artists early in the design process, not at the end
• How to help clients see the value of a $50,000 artwork the way they see a $50,000 sofa
• Kym's most cherished piece — an Oliver Wagner canvas made from house-paint dust

Why this conversation matters

In design and architecture, art is too often the final decorative layer — if it is considered at all. Kym Elphinstone offers a quietly radical counterpoint: art should be part of the conversation from the very beginning of a home, a career, a life. For designers, architects and anyone wondering how to begin collecting, this is an expert, unintimidating invitation into the art world — and a reminder that living with art changes how we feel inside our own spaces.

About Kym

Kym Elphinstone is the founder of Articulate, a Sydney-based agency specialising in contemporary art, culture and design. A lawyer who left London for the arts, Kym held senior roles at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia — including on secondment at New York's New Museum on the Bowery — before launching Articulate sixteen years ago. Articulate's clients span the Biennale of Sydney, the Australia Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (including the 2024 Gold-Lion-winning Archie Moore / kith and kin presentation), Sydney Contemporary, the NGV, Nonsingular in the Southern Highlands, and a growing roster of private collectors. Her book, Collecting and Living with Art, features 26 Australian collectors and opens with a foreword by John Kaldor.

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If this episode resonated, please like, subscribe and share — it helps Build Beautiful continue to tell deeper stories from the world of design, architecture and creative life.

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Most designers listen to the brief. Alexandra Donohoe Church listens to what's beneath it. She reads desire, not just preference. Habit, not just taste. The gap between what a client says they want and what they actually need — and she has spent 16 years navigating that gap with a restraint and precision that most designers spend a career trying to acquire.

Alexandra Donohoe Church is the founder of Decus Interiors, a studio she began alone from her apartment in 2009, building from landscape architecture into interior design. Sixteen years later, she leads a team working on some of Australia's most exquisite residential projects, with work published in Architectural Digest, Elle Decoration, Vogue Living, and Belle.

This is a conversation about the psychology of design, the discipline of restraint, and what 16 years of creative leadership actually teaches you. About how to read between the lines of what a client is really asking for. About the spaces that do their most important work quietly — holding people without them ever knowing why they feel held.

In this episode, we explore:

• Growing up between Sydney and Seattle — and how living across cultures shaped her eye for space
• The unexpected path from landscape architecture to interior design — and why she never looked back
• How she reads between the lines of a client brief: decoding desire, not just preference
• What clients think they want vs. what they truly need — and the art of delivering both with integrity
• Creating 'tension in a space' — why conversation between art, furnishings and architecture matters more than matching
• The psychology of restraint: why editing is her most powerful design tool
• Running a studio for 16 years — what she's outgrown, what she's fiercely protected, and what's kept her going
• The emotional weight of creative leadership — and the discipline required to carry it with grace
• Her obsession with detail: the proportions, edges, and grooves most people will never consciously notice
• What 'building beautiful' means to Alexandra — in work, and in life

Why this conversation matters

In a design world saturated with trend cycles and visual noise, Alexandra Donohoe Church offers something rare: a practice built on discernment, psychology, and restraint. Her philosophy — that great design is an extension of the client's inner world — is a reminder that the most enduring spaces are not designed to impress, but to hold. At a time when authenticity is more sought-after than spectacle, this conversation is a masterclass in what truly matters.

About Alexandra

Alexandra Donohoe Church is the founder of Decus Interiors, a Sydney-based interior design studio she established in 2009. Over 16 years, she has built a reputation for creating luxury residential interiors that balance refined beauty with the unexpected — resisting signature style in favour of deeply personalised spaces that feel like extensions of their inhabitants. Her work has been published in Architectural Digest, Elle Decoration, Design Anthology, Vogue Living, and Belle. She leads a team of 10–12 designers on high-end residential projects across Australia and internationally.

Decus Interiors website: www.decus.com.au

Instagram: @decusinteriors

As featured in: Architectural Digest, Elle Decoration, Design Anthology, Vogue Living, Belle

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When Darren Genner started his career, he was on a production line in western Sydney — making 34 kitchens a day. Not designing them. Making them. Fast. Somewhere in that sawdust and volume, he developed something most design school graduates never acquire: an absolute, granular understanding of how things are actually built. That foundation — unglamorous, physical, humbling — became the bedrock of a 24-year design practice that has won more awards than he can easily count.

Darren Genner is the co-founder of Studio Minosa, one of Australia's most respected interior design studios, built alongside his partner Simona starting with $400 and a shared vision of what design could do for a life. Over 24 years, they survived the GFC, a studio robbery, and the fog that followed COVID — and came out the other side with a clearer sense of who they are and what they are building.

This is a conversation about craft, resilience, and the love story at the heart of a great creative partnership. About what it means to design life better — not just for clients, but for yourself. About the discipline of doing fewer things exceptionally, the courage of having hard conversations, and why the best design practices are built not just on skill, but on survival.

In this episode, we explore:

• How a kitchen factory apprenticeship on a production line became the unlikely foundation of a world-class design philosophy
• The mentor who told a young Darren: "A chef will never tell you the ingredients" — and why watching became his greatest tool
• Meeting Simona at a Poliform showroom — the chance connection over Italian kitchens that changed everything
• Starting Studio Minosa with $400, a shared dinner idea, and a water-conscious Corian washbasin called the Puddle Scoop
• The white box method: stripping all colour from 3D renders so clients can truly understand space, function and scale before choosing materials
• Why being an early adopter of 3D visualisation — long before SketchUp — gave Studio Minosa a 24-year competitive edge
• The bad client experience that forced them to rethink contracts, communication, and the courage to have hard conversations
• How the GFC, a studio robbery, and the post-Covid slump each tested — and ultimately forged — their resilience
• The "Design Life Better" tagline: not a catchphrase but a moral compass, developed with a Nike brand strategist in 2016
• Hiring for personality over skill, building a team that stays for 10+ years, and why fewer clients done better is now the goal

Why this conversation matters

In an industry that often chases aesthetics over substance, Darren Genner is a reminder that the most enduring design practices are built on craft, curiosity, and the courage to put process before polish. Twenty-four years in, Studio Minosa is proof that when you genuinely design life better — for your clients and for yourself — the work takes care of itself.

If this episode resonated, please like, subscribe and share — it helps Build Beautiful continue to tell deeper stories from the world of design, architecture and creative life.

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Nasim Koerting grew up knowing what it means not to belong. Her parents arrived in Australia as refugees from Iran, and she inherited both their drive — the relentless, exhausting migrant roadmap: study, prove yourself, never stop — and their deepest, quietest wish: to belong somewhere, fully, without apology. She has spent her career trying to answer that question through design. The spaces she creates don't just look good. They hold people.

Nasim Koerting is the Creative Director of Merivale — the company behind some of Australia's most celebrated hospitality venues. Her path there was anything but straight: nearly a decade in London, time in Israel and Spain, a transition from interior design into creative direction at workspace developer TOG, and a phone call from Justin Hemmes that brought her back to Sydney to lead one of the country's most ambitious in-house design teams.

This is a conversation about identity and belonging, about the migrant drive that never fully switches off, and about what happens when a creative life is shaped by displacement instead of comfort. About designing spaces that make people feel at home — and about the slow, necessary work of learning to feel that way yourself.

In This Episode:
00:00 – Introduction: From Refugee Roots to Merivale

01:20 – Discovering interior architecture by accident

03:00 – Growing up as a migrant child in Australia

05:55 – Breaking cultural expectations in creative careers

09:50 – The pressure to prove yourself as a refugee’s child

11:03 – Publication, ambition, and the myth of “making it”

14:20 – Moving overseas: Israel, Spain, and London

16:38 – Creative direction in London and non-linear career paths

17:40 – The call from Merivale

18:13 – Leading design at scale across iconic hospitality venues

19:51 – Creative freedom vs brand and business constraints

21:00 – Sourcing vintage pieces in France

23:36 – When design mistakes become breakthroughs

25:42 – The collaborative Merivale design process

31:26 – Why Merivale built an in-house design team

32:21 – Living with your spaces and constantly evolving them

36:31 – Where creativity really happens

38:36 – Leadership, self-doubt, and managing large teams

41:12 – Burnout, boundaries, and reclaiming creative energy

45:45 – Advice to young designers from migrant backgrounds

53:25 – What “Build Beautiful” means to Nasim

Connect with Nasim Koerting 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nasimkoerting/

Connect with Build Beautiful

Instagram: @buildbeautiful_podcast

Website: buildbeautifulpodcast.com

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