Summer and nostalgia in Sydney

After Singapore, I had a wonderful 2.5 weeks visiting home in Sydney. I arrived on the morning of Mum's birthday, with mine following the day after, lugging a suitcase full of Chrissy presents. It was great to be able to celebrate birthdays with the family, albeit slightly jet lagged at dinner!


It's been over a year since I have been back and it was great to see family and friends again, bask under the warm sunshine, head to the sandy beaches, swim in the blue-green ocean, eat out at some favourite places and also meet the newest addition to the family, Pepper!


Pepper is Mel and David's 4-month old puppy, a shi tzu x pug with a ball of energy and a fondness for Country Road tote bags.

Pepper ♥ Country Road totes

I have loads of photos (some of which you might have already seen on Facebook) so I won't write a lot here but will mention that the one word I find sums up my time back in Sydney is nostalgia.

Maybe we have been away for so long now (2.5 years and counting) that coming back evokes such a strong sense nostalgia. It was lovely to relive this, but also see how much Sydney has progressed. I was surprised to find how unaffected Sydney was to global recession. It was a stark contrast to our observations this time last year in London. One thing Australia seemed to share with the UK, however, was the shambles the Government was in while I was home!

But enough said, here are some photos from my summer in Sydney.

Bee-lining to the beach the day I landed in Sydney. Could not have been a more beautiful day for lunch at Bronte Beach with Dad

A visit to the One Noffs store Mel volunteers her time to each week to support the Ted Noffs Foundation and young Australian fashion designers

Pepper sinks her teeth into one of her Chrissy presents from London

Bathers Pavilion at Balmoral is one of my favourite places in Sydney

Birthday brunch with Aunty Kew a Bathers

Bumping into another visitor to Sydney... Adam! What were the odds of being at the same place, on the same day, at same time having flown in from Geneva and London? Weren't we just in Geneva a moment ago??

The ARIA Awards at the Acer Arena on the night of my birthday. Truly impressed by Aussie musical talent...

... Like Empire of the Sun (above), Lisa Mitchell and The Temper Trap (click on the names to view their live performances at the ARIAs)

... And guest start, Robbie Williams (click to view Robbie live at the ARIAs)

Mel with her beautiful handmade wares at her market stall in Balmain. Check out her online store here before they all disappear!

Lunch on the water at China Doll, Woolloomooloo

Time with Mum at Bondi Beach, post a morning at the day-spa

Lunch at Speedo Cafe, Bondi Beach

With my grandparents, Mel and Mum

Lunch with Aunty June and Mel in Glebe

Have missed these family dinners lots!

Visiting my old uni, UTS for the opening night of Republic of Design, the 2009 design degree shows

Brunch with the Millers at Rozelle

Taking Pepper to Bronte Beach with Mel

Swimming at Bronte pool

A Sydney latte, served up with a famous Australian emblem!

With Cindy on her Hen's Night. Congrats to Cindy and Mal on their marriage this month, 17/12/09 in New Zealand

Sharing a few drinks with Trinh at the Ivy in Sydney City. Can't say there are many places in the world where you get served drinks by a waitress in her swimmers and Haviana thongs/flip flops. Congrats to Trinh and Harry on their marriage this month, 12/12/09 in Sydney

The last supper at Stir Crazy Thai, Neutral Bay

A final night in Sydney

The photos only show a small part of my time in Sydney. There were many more great memories with family, old friends and new ones. Thanks everyone for a wonderful visit home, and thanks to you for sharing another year of life, travel, work and study on our Two Drifters blog. Have a Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and Happy Holidays. See you in 2010!

All about design in Singapore

In November I was in Singapore to do a presentation at the Icsid (International Council of Societies of Industrial Design) Education Conference. The theme of the conference was design education 2050, and I submitted a paper that profiled my current PhD research on the changing role of the designer.


My intent was to inform the design education community of new areas designers were working in. Here in London, I am involved with a design community (see our city chapter here) who push the boundaries of the discipline, working in areas where they design for services (both private and public sector), for development, for sustainability and for strategy. Most designers come from the traditional disciplines of product design or communication design, but see the potential for design to move into many new and different areas.

I left London on a clear and sunny afternoon for a red eye flight to Singapore. I stayed at the Meritus Mandarin Hotel (what now seems like a second home for family visits to Singapore) right in the thick of the action on Singapore's main shopping hub, Orchard Road.


The conference presentation was done the following day (yes, while I battled jet lag!) and was very well received. I won't blog details about the conference here as I posted a review on my research blog, Letters to Australia (LTA) (click on the link to view). With the presentation over and done with, it was onto the next conference, the bigger Icsid Design Congress.


This conference was attended by 700 delegates from around the world to discuss and share visions for design in 2050. I only spent 2 days at the 3-day congress but really enjoyed my time there. I posted a more indepth review of Congress on the LTA blog here.

I had a great time in Singapore, talking and hearing all about design, meeting loads of people, making up for all the Chinese food I don't eat in London, and of course shoe shopping (a must every time I visit the city). After a fleeting Singapore stay, it was time to take another red eye to visit home in Sydney.

Note... If you would like to know more about the kind of design I mentioned above, and my PhD research, while I was in Singapore I was notified that a journal paper I co-authored was published online by the Australiasian Medical Journal.

The journal paper is about a project where designers co-designed the future of dementia care with a community of people with dementia and their carers. The paper is called, Co-designing for dementia: The Alzheimer 100 project. Click on the title to download a pdf.