David Flack launches new book to mark a momentous occasion for his studio
The Bendigo-born interior designer celebrates a 10-year milestone, counting Troye Sivan among his A-list celebrity clients.
David Flack’s award-winning and eclectic design instinct is innate, but it wasn’t preordained. The self-confessed “outcast” was born and raised in the regional Victorian town of Bendigo and wasn’t exposed to galleries or design as a child. He also didn’t grow up in an architectural home filled with art or elegant furniture.
Despite that, Flack began laying the foundations for his future by tinkering in his oversized cubby house, which became a canvas for his imagination. Whether it was a flower shop one week or a travel agent the next, he shaped the space with an emerging intensity and intuition that now defines his globally recognised practice, Flack Studio. “I had this huge cubbyhouse,” Flack recalls. “My dad was a builder, and he made it for me. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was already designing, moving things around, making it feel like a little world of my own.”
A decade since founding his eponymous studio, 40-year-old Flack has become one of Australia’s most recognisable creative forces. His portfolio includes award-winning homes, landmark commercial projects, celebrity residences and the highly acclaimed Ace Hotel Sydney. It was a project that proved both career-defining and a steep learning curve in terms of trusting his vision.
The launch of his debut book, Flack Studio: Interiors, marks a significant new milestone. It’s a profoundly personal and proud journey through the spaces that shaped him and the people who have welcomed him into their homes. “I’m obsessed with books. Our office is built around them. So for the studio’s 10th anniversary, it just felt right. These projects are more than just jobs. They changed me.”
Emotional honesty is a key element in Flack’s work. He’s a designer of compelling contradictions: instinctual yet deliberate, theatrical but practical, rebellious yet refined. He isn’t interested in trends, doesn’t ask clients for Pinterest boards, and rarely uses renders.
“They look like cartoons. I always tell clients, ‘Just trust me. You’re going to love it’.”
And most of them do. His projects are recognised for their confident and often unconventional layering of materials, unexpected colour palettes and meticulous attention to detail. Every home he designs stems from an emotional connection with the client and the space.
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“We always say the house tells you what to do,” he explains. “The client, the site, the energy – it all speaks to you. You just have to listen.”
When he launched Flack Studio in 2014, the designer had no business plan, just a sketchbook full of ideas and a passion for creating. He had left his dream job at design studio Hecker Phelan Guthrie (now Hecker Guthrie) with vague plans to move to London, but the freelance offers kept coming in. “I set myself a six-month window and then … I just never left,” Flack says.
Back then, he was living above a shop in Northcote, teaching himself how to run a practice, with only raw talent and a beautifully designed website. “I spent all my money on branding,” he laughs. “But I figured if I didn’t have work, at least I’d look like I did.”
What he lacked in formal business experience, he made up for with vision and a fierce commitment to relationships. “I only wanted to work with people I liked. You’re designing their home. You’re in their lives for years. You can’t fake that.”
His work came to global attention in 2020 with the unveiling of performer Troye Sivan’s Melbourne home, Courtyard, which was featured in Architectural Digest. The project was a turning point, not only for its viral reach but for how it embodied Flack’s design ethos.
“That house is my dream home. If you asked me to define my aesthetic, my fantasy palette, furniture and finishes, it’s all there. That’s the house I’d live in,” he admits.
The creative chemistry between Flack and Sivan has since led to further collaborations, including international pop-ups and a second residence in Los Angeles. “He knows what he wants,” Flack says. “But he’s also incredibly open. That kind of trust, that’s where the magic happens.”
That same spirit of creative intimacy is evident in Flack’s latest project, the Melbourne home of television personality Andy Lee and his fiancee Rebecca Harding. “It’s a big one; architecturally ambitious, technically complex and incredibly special. You can’t take your finger off the pulse with a house like that. Every detail matters,” Flack says.
Detail is, naturally, the interior designer’s domain. The rooms in Flack Studio: Interiors are layered with texture, colour and personality. Some of the featured projects were selected for their creative breakthroughs, while others were chosen for the lasting friendships they created.
“It was hard to choose. I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. But these were the ones that changed me, the leapfrogs.”
One home featured, the Pettigrew-Boyd house, was revisited years after the initial 2018 renovation. “It was emotional to go back, see how the garden had grown, how the family lived in it. It felt like going home,” he says.
The idea of a home as a living, breathing entity runs through all of Flack Studio’s work. “I always say the first scratch is the best scratch. These spaces should be used, nothing’s too precious.”
Longevity is also part of the studio’s sustainability ethos. Rather than chasing certifications or trend-driven materials, Flack focuses on enduring design. “Sustainability, to me, is building something with great bones, thoughtful planning, great materials, no fads. That’s how you avoid waste.”
He’s not too proud to admit if something feels off mid-process. “I’m fast. I’ll redesign in a heartbeat. That agility is our superpower.”
It was put to the test in full force on the Ace Hotel project. It was 2019 and Flack had just declared, half-jokingly, to his branding partner that he’d love to design a hotel like Ace. Days later, he received a voicemail that Ace Hotel New York was expanding to Sydney and wanted to meet. The developer hadn’t included Flack Studio in the shortlist, but the Ace team insisted.
The project was massive, an entire hotel, designed in lockdown, without the New York team ever seeing the space until opening day. “It nearly killed me. But when the lighting was right and we hung the art and the music was playing, I knew it was special.” It was also a turning point. Flack Studio is now fielding offers for global hotel work, celebrity homes and major collaborations. “We’re a collective now. We share a vision. We’re competitive with ourselves. We just want to keep getting better,” Flack says.
He’s also refreshingly self-aware and humble about the rise in his own profile. “It’s a very Australian thing to downplay it. But I’m proud. I built this from nothing. No connections, no money, no fancy school,” he says. “We often hark back, in the office, that ultimately I’m just creating big cubbyhouses now.”
Flack Studio: Interiors (Rizzoli).
This story is from the September issue of WISH.
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