Dar Studio – A Brand New Start

Dar Studio is borne from my diverse experiences in the practice of architecture and heritage, which have laid the foundations to create a practice specialising in the fields of conservation and regeneration mixed with contemporary design.

My vision for Dar Studio is for it to be a practice acknowledged for good design, centered on a desire to create places that people want to be in.

Basing the practice around my surname (Dar) has been deliberate; as I made a conscious decision that to start with I was selling my personal experience and expertise to guide every aspect of our work. I am also keen to collaborate and grow, so the reference to Studio will bring this opportunity.

As anyone who has started a small business knows, it feels liberating, refreshing, nerve racking and scary all at the same time, but moreover it is also a feeling of the right thing to do for myself to support my desire to grow, collaborate and integrate with others.

I’m originally from Leeds in the north of the UK and spent more than a decade living and working there, which is a place of significant heritage built form and landscape. Here I specialised in the conservation and adaptive re-use of historic buildings and sites such as Barnsley Civic Hall in South Yorkshire, Astely Park in Chorley and Sleaford Maltings in Lincolnshire.

I migrated with my family to Western Australia in 2013, with this solid grounding putting me in good stead to enjoy over four years working at element on a broad range of heritage related projects, including some of the State’s most significant heritage sites such as the New Perth Museum for Western Australia, Sunset Heritage Precinct and the Raine Square redevelopment.

During my time in Perth, I have built strong industry connections and through these have continued to work on important city-building precincts such as Charter Hall’s Raine Square development, where I worked to advise on heritage architecture and adaptive re-use, extending this to luxury retailers such as Tiffany & Co and Watches of Switzerland, where I advised on retail fit out.

My passion also lies in working with people to realise their dream residence and I am working with a range of domestic clients to achieve innovative outcomes for their properties.

Dar Studio is off to a strong start despite the challenging times we are all living through and I’m grateful for the support so far from clients including Patrick Hollingworth at Charter Hall and my time spent over the last year working part time at the Department of Planning, Lands and Heritage.