Melissa Bright
Melissa Bright is director of Melbourne-based practice Studio Bright. We chat to Melissa about her design journey, her studio routine alongside her team and what drives her creativity.
Photography: Rory Gardiner & Jessica Lindsay
Autumn House by Studio Bright. Photo: Rory Gardiner
‘Above all, what drives my creativity—and by extension the team’s— is our ambition to make genuine contributions to people, to their lives and to the fabric of our city,’ says Melissa Bright. Photo: Jessica Lindsay
Autumn House by Studio Bright. Photo: Rory Gardiner
Autumn House by Studio Bright. Photo: Rory Gardiner
H&F: Hi Melissa, what led you here and how has your journey evolved?
Melissa: I was good at maths and science at high school but loved art and design. I considered studying engineering at University but decided to follow my passion for design and apply for architecture at RMIT.
I considered other design paths (like graphics or industrial design) but felt like there was more opportunity to make a difference in architecture. Architecture has an ability to make a contribution to our cities and the way people live.
I love the balance between the poetic and the functional and my day is full of such varying tasks and scales of thought. On one end of the scale you need to keep the rain out, at the other we want to create something that gives delight – light, space and poetry.
Do you have a disciplined studio routine and any rituals to help keep you focused?
The studio is a small, open plan space so we all support and learn from each other – it’s very collaborative. The routine is a little bit loose but we have regular informal catch-ups throughout the day.
A few key things that are very important to our studio culture and working week:
. No meetings on Monday mornings or Friday afternoons. This allows us to focus on the studio as a whole and keep perspective on what's important for the week. We have team meetings and discuss the week together as a group.
. A daily, healthy lunch, prepared and shared by the whole studio. We have Bec, our studio assistant/in-house chef working three days a week and she makes the most delicious food. On other days the team prepares something. I find shared lunches such a supportive thing for the team as it allows us to focus on getting our work done. We also all get to catch-up and we often sit outside and enjoy the sunshine.
. Monday and Friday lunchtime exercise sessions with a personal trainer for the whole team.
My wish is that working at Studio Bright is good for you and hopefully that also helps us to make better buildings and have a nice life.
As a designer, what’s the best lesson you’ve learnt along the way?
Trust your intuition. Don't rush to respond to a tricky problem - take your time and sleep on it, sometimes the solution to an issue takes a few days to present itself. And lastly, cost cutting can be an opportunity to make the design better - refine, improve, never give up.
When did you first understand design as a form of expression?
Probably not really until RMIT architecture school. My first year at RMIT was incredibly daunting - so many clever, mature age students and I was straight out of high school.
Growing up, my family spent more time outdoors or playing sports than doing cultural things. In many ways, architecture was seen as something that supported our lives rather than an intellectual endeavour — a backdrop for life and never competing with it. In hindsight, this may be the biggest influence on my ethos and approach to architecture today.
What drives your creativity?
We’re motivated to create enduring and responsive architecture for people and places. Every project is an opportunity to contribute positively to the social and built fabric of our cities. We think that even a house should have civic ambitions and that the domestic scale has a role to play in the larger city.
We love that even the smallest acts of architecture have the capacity for generosity. Our projects of all scales are bound by a sense of craft and considered detail, driven by the desire to enrich daily life, and to balance rigour with joy.
We hope our architecture brings delight to look at, to touch and to experience. Above all, what drives my creativity—and by extension the team’s— is our ambition to make genuine contributions to people, to their lives and to the fabric of our city.
8 Yard House by Studio Bright. Photo: Rory Gardiner
Ruckers Hill House by Studio Bright. Photo: Rory Gardiner
8 Yard House by Studio Bright. Photo: Rory Gardiner
Ruckers Hill House by Studio Bright. Photo: Rory Gardiner
“For us, the detail is as important as the big idea and we enjoy testing both of these through an inventive and rigorous process of design and material exploration.”
What/who influences your work?
Landscape, art, travel, places, old cities and good design for people. We love working carefully within a site context and think where possible good quality housing stock should be refurbished and retained. We value the layers of history from our pre-colonial history to today and enjoy the various challenges of adding new sympathetic contemporary buildings within a rich and diverse context.
We aim for solutions that stitch carefully into context and, when viewed close up, reveal a rich layering of surfaces and details. For us, the detail is as important as the big idea and we enjoy testing both of these through an inventive and rigorous process of design and material exploration.
Do you have a favourite material to work with for your designs?
Most important thing for us is to build with quality, and to design and build things that last. In many ways it’s our fundamental approach to sustainability – if buildings are well loved and enduring that’s the most sustainable thing we can do. This means we use brick and masonry quite a bit externally, timber for warmth internally and try to avoid the use of plasterboard.
Is this your dream job?
Yes! Great team, great community and I love doing what we do. I should say that it’s not always easy, so we really try to celebrate the wins. Architecture takes time, patience and tenacity. It does feel a lot like an endurance sport sometimes.
What’s the most memorable project or commission you’ve worked on?
Recently the project that took a huge amount of studio time and energy was our Loftus Lane project in Circular Quay, Sydney. We started it in 2014 when we hadn’t really completed anything much bigger than a house so it was a huge leap for the studio. We learnt a lot through the process and won the The Frederick Romberg Award for Multiple Housing last year at the AIA National Awards. This was an incredible achievement for me and my team, it was amazing to receive that recognition for all the hard work.
What does success mean for you?
Good architecture and a happy life for me and my team.
What are you looking forward to this year?
Last year was such a big year for the studio and so this year we are hoping to consolidate and just keep plugging away at projects we love!
We have a couple of larger community and educational projects that are already under construction or about to begin on site. We’re really excited to see these realised and hope to see them become well-loved contributions to their local communities.
We’ve also been working on a number of small social housing projects that we can’t wait to see develop and evolve. Alongside community and housing projects, we continue to enjoy the private residential projects. We have some really lovely houses finishing up that we’re excited to share soon.