#EP 09 - Mel Mackenzie - The Interior Designer's advocate

Mel Mackenzie is a principal at TKD Architects in Sydney and one of Australia's most respected interior designers, with a career spanning over 25 years across commercial, hospitality, healthcare, residential, and some genuinely unexpected project types. With a background that began in architecture before finding her true calling in interior design, Mel brings both technical rigour and a deep passion for the way spaces shape how people feel and function in their everyday lives. I

n this episode, Mel Mackenzie shares the story behind her design journey, from growing up with an interior designer mother to studying architecture, experiencing a crisis of direction, and ultimately landing exactly where she was always meant to be. She unpacks the critical and often misunderstood differences between interior design, interior decorating, and interior styling, and why those distinctions matter more than most people realise.

Mel also speaks candidly about her advocacy work with the Design Institute of Australia (DIA) to regulate the interior design profession in New South Wales, a fight she's taking all the way to government. And she reflects on the design philosophy that guides every project she takes on: get the function right first, and the beauty will follow.

Key Takeaways:

• Interior design is not about cushions and curtains first ... it's about spatial function, compliance, coordination, and creating spaces that genuinely work for the people living or working in them.

• There is a meaningful and important difference between interior design, interior decorating, and interior styling and conflating them does a disservice to qualified professionals and, more critically, to clients.

• Mel is actively working with the Design Institute of Australia to regulate the profession in NSW, a move that would create clearer licensing pathways, protect qualified designers, and ultimately better serve the public.

• Qualified interior designers are legally and professionally responsible for compliance with Australian Standards and the National Construction Code, something untrained practitioners often don't even know exists.

• The constraints of compliance and regulation aren't a creative roadblock, they're actually what pushes designers to be more inventive and find better solutions.

• Mel's design process always starts with function: she won't show a client how a space looks until she knows it works. The aesthetic, she says, grows out of that practicality, not the other way around.

• Designing for wellbeing is built into every residential project Mel takes on, from where you drop your keys when you walk in the door to how a busy parent moves through their home without stress.

• No two projects are the same, and that's the point. Whether it's a feedlot, a dental practice, or a hotel, the principles of design hold, it's just a different set of challenges to navigate.

• Interior designers make dozens of invisible decisions on every project that clients never see, and that's exactly how it should be.

To find out more about Mel Mackenzie, connect here:

TDK Architects | Tanner Kibble Denton

TDK Instagram

CONNECT with McRae + Lynch Design

Visit our website: www.mcraeandlynch.com.au

PINTEREST:

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Karyn + Helen xx