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3D | DARC DESIGNERS
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Painting with Light darc discovers how fashion influences the choices Kendra Pinkus makes when working with her team at Australian interior design firm Bates Smart.
Bates Smart is a multidisciplinary design firm delivering architecture, interior design, urban design and strategic services across Australia, with over 300 staff in studios across Melbourne and Sydney. The company’s award-winning projects transform the city fabric and the way people use and inhabit urban spaces and built environments. Kendra Pinkus, an Associate Director at Bates Smart, has been with the company for over 20 years and worked on the Crown Perth project (featured in darc issue 19) alongside Director Jeff Copolov. Here, we delve deeper into her passion for interiors and how lighting plays an integral role to any project. Design was deeply embedded in Pinkus from an early age having grown up in a family of fashion designers and found herself constantly surrounded by leather, fabric and shoe samples. While there was never any pressure to continue in the family business and work within the fashion industry, it has, inadvertently become one of the designer’s key reference points for inspiration. “I relate fashion to interiors all of the time,” Pinkus tells darc. “With fashion,
every piece has to be finely tailored and have a point of difference but, most importantly, a fashion item has to be comfortable and wear well. I believe interiors share a similar approach where each piece must work for the client’s needs and ultimately the end-user. “Fashion is often the lead for inspiration when I start an interiors concept. Every mood board incorporates a fashion element, such as patterns or colour palettes. A beautiful pleat of a dress could inspire a light fitting, a handbag clasp could emerge as a handle detail and a stitch in a jacket lining could be transformed into a decorative cushion. Having changed schools at 14 years of age to one that was more aligned with the arts, Pinkus spent as much time as she could during lunch breaks and school holidays in the art department and confesses, as a child, she would much rather take a suitcase of arts and crafts on holiday than a suitcase of clothes. “That school changed my life,” she says. “As soon as I walked in I was like a kid in a candy store – there were five levels to the art department! This is where I discovered graphics and interiors. At the
end of my time there, I asked my graphics teacher for guidance as to whether I should place interiors or graphics as my first option – there was no need for an answer and my final thesis delivered was on a hotel interior. Interior design was not particularly a choice, rather my career destiny.” As is usually the case, the transition from education to employment for Pinkus wasn’t a straightforward one. Having applied for the only school available for interior design, unfortunately Pinkus was not accepted. Determined to follow her passion in interiors, she declined the opportunity to study industrial design and instead joined a large architectural firm, which cemented her passion for interiors. “I was at the firm for about a year and absolutely loved it – it was the perfect experience following school and I absorbed everything I could. I was seated right next door to the head of interior design– she was so inspiring! I then reapplied to RMIT’s school for interior design and I was accepted– this is where my journey really began.” To support herself through university, Pinkus took a job in retail, which inadvertently