How often do we say to our clients, this might not work? A few days after a very bold colour concept had been accepted by our client, the architect called me and asked, “Sonia, how confident are you that this is actually going to work?”

There are colours that are inherently unsuitable for architecture, but white is not one of them, white is very useful.

The colours for this refurbishment of a former Bourke Street Bakery, into Paper Bird (a modern Korean) restaurant in Potts Point, created a kind of inner world.

The opportunity offered by the semi underground space allowed us to create a self contained world, with a unique atmosphere.

So many public buildings exhibit the same old white/grey or beige/greige colour schemes… Intended to be polite and neutral, they avoid scrutiny or comment. It is commonly thought that neutrals will be liked by the greatest number of people. I’d like to see the research on that.