Smart Design Studio, founded in 1997, has a reputation as a multi-disciplinary design studio of excellence and its philosophy can be distilled into three simple words: excellence, innovation and collaboration.

With a diverse range of design projects – master-planning for new urban centres, public projects, commercial, cultural and retail spaces, multi-unit residential developments and private residences – Smart Design Studio produces buildings and interiors of elegant simplicity, a quality which unites its portfolio across differences in scale.

The studio consists of 40 people divided into five separate teams, each with its own area of specialisation. These teams share knowledge and work together at critical stages of the design process, allowing the expertise of one team to influence the designs of others. For example, the interior design team may assist the architectural teams at sketch design stages to develop good space planning and later in the documentation stage with the selection of finishes or lighting design.

The efforts of the studio focuses on ensuring great buildings are built: the practice applies its experience in design and documentation to each project undertaken, while striving to introduce innovation and new concepts to continually invigorate its work. This approach creates a unique quality for each project and encourages continual growth in the Studio.

Smart Design Studio works to make its projects sustainable by incorporating ESD principles and technologies and through imbuing them with a timeless quality. It understands that the buildings created are part of the physical, social and economic landscape they inhabit and the process facilitates clear and efficient dialogue between the many participants in any project. The result is architecture with greater value and increased longevity.

Photography: Romello Pereira