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Designer’s Dozen with Kushla McFadden

Posted on by L. Dreeye
Designer’s Dozen with Kushla McFadden

Kushla McFadden co-founder and director of Tom Mark Henry, an award-winning interior design studio based in Sydney and Brisbane. With a philosophy rooted in connections and inspired by authenticity, Tom Mark Henry has completed interiors for Microsoft, WeWork and countless hotel and residential interiors across the country, winning awards in the process. Here Kushla talks to InteriorsAu about her most prized possession, the design book she often returns to, and what she would do if she weren’t a designer.

1. What was your defining design moment?
WeWork – being able to fly to New York, work with their head of design in the first two Australian offices and at the time design for the fastest growing company in the world after just a couple of years of running my own was crazy. an event which, upon reflection, ushered us into a new era of recognition within the design community.

WeWork Martin Place by Tom Mark Henry

2. This is your ultimate designer dinner. Which four guests will you invite?
Mies van der Rohe. Jorn Utzon would be an interesting guest (last year I read House and learned so much about the Sydney Opera House design process and the designer behind it). Ray Eames. Charmian Clift.

3. What’s on your mind lately?
Our Airbnb! We have a small studio on our beachfront property and are currently preparing it for a busy summer.

4. What is your most treasured designer item?
We started our modest art collection in 2018, and I still treasure the first piece we bought from Walcha Art Gallery: Lemons and white plate Esther Ackley.

5. Which place have you visited that inspired you the most?
Philip Johnson’s Glass House or the Mirror Cube at the Tree Hotel in Sweden – for the same reasons, built structures merge with the nature around them.

6. What design book do you return to often?
Gaston Bachelard Poetics of space.

7. What is your favorite design quote?
“Less is more” by Mies Van der Rohe.

8. Who do you look up to in design?
It sounds corny, but my team! Every day I am surrounded by such talented and capable people.

9. Which project do you consider to be the best to date?
After celebrating 10 years in business this year, it’s hard to pick a favorite from our ever-growing portfolio! However, our West End Residence project stands out as one of our best, and is also our first residential project to be completed in Brisbane since opening our studio there last year.

West End residence of Tom Mark Henry

10. If you weren’t a designer, what would you be?
Probably an academic in design studies.

11. What would you change about the state of the design?
We need to improve adaptive reuse and minimize waste. Fundamentally, at Tom Mark Henry, we look at projects through the lens of what can be reused and adapted, but many people still hold the view that tearing down and rebuilding is “easier and cheaper”, which may be true, but it not like that. the best solution from a sustainability perspective.

12. What is your dream project?
Mixed use multi-family residential project with hotel, wellness center, amazing food, beverage and retail. We will be able to exert all our design forces on a project of this scale.