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The Great Indoors Creative

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Manly, NSW
The Great Indoors Creative

RESIDENTIAL AND COMMERCIAL ARCHITECTURE AND INTERIOR DESIGN STUDIO

19/10/2026

Adidas’ streetwear label Y-3 — a long-running collaboration with Japanese designer Yohji Yamamoto — wanted its first flagship to celebrate the brand’s pioneering and innovative spirit.

We translated Y-3’s global ‘art gallery meets sporting arena’ concept into an understated design that recontextualizes, sometimes playfully so, materials and colours associated with sporting areas.

This includes the chunky cork-and-rubber columns, harvested from cork oak trees without damaging them, and a ceiling system made entirely from pre-fabricated Colorbond steel, which is 100% recyclable. These materials are all locally sourced, tying in with the key idea of exploring sustainable approaches as much as possible.

We’ve made a conscious effort to create a lo-fi, low-tech store, letting the collections do all the talking, with low stock selection on display, allowing the products to breathe and be appreciated.

Client: Y-3, in partnership with sorrythanksiloveyou
Retail design management: Westfield Sydney
Ceiling grid: Rondo Inspire
Wall fabric: Zweigart & Sawitzki GmbH & Co. KG
Cork in back wall and columns: Market Timbers FIooring

📸: The Great Indoors

[Retail Design, Australian Designers, Brand Experience, Interior Design, Retail Store]

14/10/2026

Where ideas come from.💡

We recently discovered some travel sketches while sorting through some old folders.

Our best ideas often spring when Gesa and I are away. Immersing ourselves in European culture, from the architecture to the local markets and communities, provides a refreshing boost to our creative energy. Travel grants us the freedom to slow down and truly experience the local character. It is within this space that sketching becomes a blissful—dare we say—meditative practice.

12/10/2026

Stoked to share that our design for Palm&Lime, a little slice of tropical SE Asia right here on the Northern Beaches bagged Silver at the BETTER FUTURE Awards.🏆

This one was special...Palm & Lime is the very first Aussie business for its husband-wife business owners so we were right there with them from day dot: we helped them develop the concept, create a project budget, select operational equipment, navigate approvals, connect with the right builder and manage the design and construction process from concept through to completion.

We picked terracotta ceramics, layered green tiles, and a bespoke botanical motif to create a relaxed, fresh look that makes this compact 27 sqm outlet hold its own at Westfield Warringah Mall.

We narrowed this project down to 5 key focus areas that made the business successful. Swipe to see!

A big shout-out to our clients at Palm & Lime, builder and shopfitter Stephen Keyhoe and Addition Projects, Academy Tiles, and the Westfield crew for helping us pull it off so beautifully!

📷 Lee Hopkinson and Addition Projects

retaildesign branddesign interiorarchitecture

07/10/2026

We are free thinkers. Freehand sketching is a key part of our design process. It fosters spontaneity and originality, lets us test ideas and bring clients and builders into the conversation early, and helps us create spaces that are not only beautiful and functional, but also filled with a sense of theatre.

30/09/2026

Fast-casual dining had already become hugely popular in Australia: burgers, burritos, salads, counter service. KFC wanted a piece of that market with young urbanites in Sydney, and we were roped in to design new stores that would test their refreshed identity — new menu, branding, and communications — under the project name Urban 2.0, a first for Australia.

Teaming up with Designworks on brand and graphics, we built a new fast-casual concept from the ground up for KFC’s first Parramatta store — warm plywood, charcoal metal, and their signature bold red used in unexpected areas, from grout lines to pendant lights. This concept, along with a second store we completed in Manly (the smallest KFC in the Southern Hemisphere!) was a huge success, and has since rolled out into other urban centres across Australia!

Builder: Lanskey Construction
Brand & graphics: Designworks
Wall cladding (plywood): Designer Ply
Wall tiles: Calibre Concepts
Back wall (black Colorbond): STRATCO Trade - ACT/NSW
Stone benchtop: Laminex Sydney / Essastone
Banquette seating fabric: Baresque
Vinyl flooring: Forbo Flooring Australia
Metal sheeting: Locker Group
Paint: Dulux Australia
Bar stools: Curious Grace
Fable chair: Cafe Culture
Outdoor furniture: Tait | Outdoor Furniture

29/09/2026

A fresh set of portraits was long overdue so we figured why not have some fun along the way! 😎📸

at The Great Indoors Creative 🌞

24/09/2026

Here’s a sneak peek at our design for Adidas’ first flagship in Sydney. The design takes the philosophy to a new level, with the architecture stepping back and letting the merchandise do all the talking. A 360-degree focus on reducing, reusing, and recycling ♻️ was key to Adidas’ design brief, which we pulled off successfully, with help from our collaborators, including:

The retail design management team
ceiling grid:
Wall fabric:
Cork in back wall and columns:

21/09/2026

Optometry stores can feel sterile and clinical. Not 1001 Optometry.

Our collaboration with 1001 Optometry at Chatswood Chase is a celebration of their motto “details are beautiful”, expressed through a focus on the details of the space itself.

The layout is designed to be visually open and transparent, putting customers at ease from the outset. From browsing frames and lens selection, through pre-testing and fitting, the entire customer journey is designed to bring comfort and relaxation to visitors. Semi-private consultation rooms sit at the end of the scheme, with curtains provided for that extra bit of privacy.

We wanted the material vocabulary to be ‘eye-catching’ as well right from the moment you enter: fluted glass-edge shopfront panels and mirrors contrast with the homely warmth of timber joinery. And because it’s a high-traffic spot, Robertson's Building Products’ brick floor tiles and Skheme floor tiles are doing the heavy lifting pretty effortlessly.

Retail design is often about navigating complex landlord approvals to make a vision reality. It’s been a joy to bring this one to life with our friends at 1001 Optometry.

A huge shoutout also to Laminex AU (joinery), and Trend Lighting for helping us get this nail the details!

Brand & graphics: VML Australia & New Zealand
Lighting: Trend Lighting
Threshold floor tiles: Robertson's Building Products
Main floor tile: Skheme
Timber laminate for joinery units and walls, elegant oak by Formica Laminex AU
Banquette seat fabrics: Kvadrat Febrik

17/09/2026

If you can imagine it, you can print it!

Dug this one up from the vault. A decade ago, Officeworks asked us to design something that had never existed in Australian retail: a store built entirely around .

The brief was as much about educating customers as it was about retail. So the design had to do double duty—explain a completely new idea, and make people want to try it. A central two-way escalator, usually a dead space to design around, became the store’s centrepiece instead, with pixel-shaped elements threading the whole journey together.

We used Birch plywood, concrete, and blue resin to create a cohesive look reflecting the brand palette. The most memorable part: a Mini Me photo booth that scans and prints a lifelike miniature figure of you, on the spot!

Things turned out even better than planned, with thousands of figures made and way more customer engagement than we hoped for. Now Officeworks has a great template for other locations. Big thanks to Designworks for the branding help and to the Officeworks crew for backing such a unique concept.

15/09/2026

Sydney’s appetite for sushi has never been bigger — and the market’s never been more crowded. So when we were commissioned to build a new sushi brand and interior concept from the ground up, it needed to really stand out.🐟🌊

Teaming up with our reliable partner Brad Stevens at Stevens & Co and the brilliant retail design manager at , we developed Ima Sushi’s flagship eat-in and takeaway destination, a concept that saw a multi-site rollout across Bondi Junction, and later, Chatswood.

We really enjoyed working on the details that lend the project its distinctive identity—swipe through to see the moody interiors! 👀

📷 Katherine Lu
Wall feature lighting: Est Lighting
General lighting: About Space
Furniture: DESIGN BY THEM
Countertop: CASF Australia
Counter and floor tiles: Skheme
Band of floor tiles and concrete wall cladding: Robertson's Building Products
Timber wall cladding: Havwoods Australia

Address

11 Pine Street
Manly, NSW
2095

Opening Hours

Monday	9am - 5pm
Tuesday	9am - 5pm
Wednesday	9am - 5pm
Thursday	9am - 5pm
Friday	9am - 5pm

Website

http://www.thegreatindoors.net.au/

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