A Bit More on Me

It’s been a wild, wonderful start.

My first official projects have helped Warren and Mahoney find their voice in the multi-res market, Foster + Partners launch their first Australian exhibition, and 3XN/GXN and BVN write the story of the new Sydney Fish Market for a local expert audience.

On many days, I get to meet new people and learn what’s driving their work and their ambition. It’s a privilege to operate like this—this truth grounds my reality.

I moved with my husband to Sydney. Work brought us. But we are here to stay.

I joined Bates Smart as the first firmwide Communications Manager to help shift from project based marketing, to ideas based marketing.

It was my job to find these ideas, frame them across all BD, marketing and communications efforts, and then amplify them—internally to staff, and externally to the world.

I led a team. I got to know fantastic people who work within Australian architecture. I built a deep network of like-minded BD, marketing and communications experts. And I made lifelong friends.

A juicy project. One I loved. And one that I hope contributes to the legacy of Australia’s oldest and largest architecture firm.

I launched a consultancy in Chicago, to bring my skills and expertise to smaller design businesses.

I loved my work at SOM. But I missed talking to and working with small and medium practices.

My original mission: to ride the reputational high of the recently completed Burj Khalifa, and win as many Awards for the firm as possible.

I’m proud to say I won 127 major Awards for SOM. Including the AIA 25 Year Award for the Exchange House in London, the AIA’s highest national honour.

SOM is where I learned how to bring together BD, marketing and communications for an architecture firm.

I worked directly with architecture, interiors and engineering teams across all project phases—from competitions to completion wind-downs—and on all kinds of work: bids, Awards, standard marketing collateral, publications, presentations, press junkets and major speaking events.

Expectations were high. Pressure was high. But the innovation and pride was incredible.

I graduated from the School of Architecture at the University of Ilinois Chicago with a Master of Design Criticism.

My thesis: looking at how architects have used the aerial view as a storytelling device, from le Corbusier and his flights over Algeria, to Koolhaas and Lagos, to Bjarke Ingels and Parkour, film and flatness.

I joined Design Bureau magazine as an Editor, leading direction and production for all architecture stories.

Our audience was global. We somehow hooked major designers. I interviewed and wrote about 100s of architects—including Michael Graves, twice.

I learned how to talk to architects so that they would tell me about their ideas, not just describe their projects.

And I learned how to write and edit a compelling story. Really well, really fast.

I got my official start working as a curatorial assistant at the Graham Foundation in Chicago.

I helped install and run public programming for the exhibition Solid Void, by Cecil Balmond, one of the world’s leading structural engineers and artists.

My journey in architecture and design started in Buenos Aires, a city of great public plazas.  

I love those plazas. They are teeming with life—the good, bad, unexpected and uplifting. 

I kept asking myself, “How do these plazas shape the everyday, and why do we love them?” 

Fast forward six months. I was sitting on a plaza bench and I knew: to really get it, I had to go to architecture school.