Design Conversations

Robyn Lindsey is an interior and experience designer with over four decades of practice across retail, corporate, hospitality and residential sectors. She studied Interior Design at RMIT and holds an MBA in Entrepreneurial Studies from Swinburne. From 1990 she spent three decades at Geyer Design, progressing to Director and Partner and serving as Global Strategy and Design Leader overseeing the firm’s expansion into Asia. In 2021 she established her own independent practice. She was recognised with a Lifetime Achievement in the 2020 Architecture and Design Sustainability Awards. See the full show notes for more details.

Rina Cohen is an interior designer who has been in practice for more than thirty years, and is an award winning designer specialising in the field of residential design. She is a Fellow of the Design Institute of Australia and winner of the KBDI Certified Designer of the Year in 2023. See the full show notes for more details.

Dario Zoureff is a pre-eminent interior and furniture designer, with a memorable catalogue of residential and commercial furniture designed over several decades. He was born in Vienna in the 1930s and came to Australia at the age of nine. He studied interior design at the Royal Melbourne Technical College in the 1950s, and began a sixty-year practice thereafter. See the full show notes for more details.

Mary Featherston, together with her husband Grant, have been seminal figures in Australian Design, delivering high-profile projects over decades in mid-century Australia. Mary has been celebrated in the field of children’s early-learning environments, working with schools, childcare centres and museums, and she continues as a consultant and advocate in this sphere. See the full show notes for more details.

David Terry trained in Industrial Design at RMIT, and then under architect Don Ward at Myer, where he made major contributions to the development of Myer Chadstone and then to Farmers in Sydney. David was engaged by the Industrial Design Council of Australia for several years and eventually became a State Director. See the full show notes for more details.

Robert Miller Smith has been a major contributor to the design profession in Australia and internationally, both in the field of visual communications and design education. From the London College of Printing, to Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, to University of South Australia and then to Swinburne University, he has had an extraordinary career and shares those experiences along the way. See the full show notes for more details.

One of the most influential figures in Australian design, Kathy Demos has been responsible for steering the course of design in Australia, and internationally, by her skilled direction of major programmes, events and consultancies for the past few decades. See the full show notes for more details.

A renowned leader in the field of furniture manufacture and design, Ian Howard was the Founder and Managing Director of Aristoc Furniture in mid century Melbourne; he then established Herman Miller Australia, and finally Co Design, the preeminent commercial furniture company in Australia in the 1970s. Ian established design activity at the centre of his enterprises, with the hiring of designers such as Grant Featherston and Fred Lowen. See the full show notes for more details.

A renowned leader in the field of furniture manufacture and design, Ian Howard was the Founder and Managing Director of Aristoc Furniture in mid-century Melbourne; he then established Herman Miller Australia, and finally Co Design, the preeminent commercial furniture company in Australia in the 1970s. Ian established design activity at the centre of his enterprises, with the hiring of designers such as Grant Featherston and Fred Lowen. See the full show notes for more details.