Concept CGI of our project in New Farm (in progress)
How a room actually feels to live in is a question I have asked throughout my career. What changed in Australia was the answer I kept coming back to: ease. I had already spent years in Los Angeles learning to be decisive, and years in London learning the value of restraint. Ease was different, something I learned to recognise in the people using rooms. Since establishing Daniel Kostiuc Interior Design in Brisbane, I have considered that change more deliberately.
Australian houses have a different relationship with the life around them. Light is more assertive, the landscape feels closer, and doors remain open. Gardens and terraces are not destinations reached after leaving the interior; they can function as extensions of it. That changes what we ask of furniture and fabrics, how precious a surface can afford to be, and where formality begins to feel artificial. I still value craftsmanship, beautiful materials, bespoke furniture and the pleasure of a considered room. What changed was my understanding of what all that consideration should produce.
The room should be able to relax, which is not the same as making it casual. Ease requires enormous thought. A chair sits in the right place before anyone reaches for it; a table is close enough to set down a glass. Doors can stay open without destroying the room’s composition, and fabrics remain beautiful while suited to how they will actually be used. Circulation has to work when the house is full, not merely when it is photographed empty.
Perhaps this is where my definition of luxury has changed most. Earlier in my career, I was fascinated by what could be made: extraordinary finishes, rare materials and specialist craftsmanship. They remain central to my work. But expensive or difficult things alone do not make a house luxurious. A luxurious interior accommodates the life within it exceptionally well.
In Brisbane, that might mean understanding the intensity of sunlight before choosing a textile, or considering how a room behaves when large doors stay open for much of the day. It might mean designing an entertaining space that accommodates twenty people without feeling built for twenty when only two are home. In our Drama in New Farm project, the kitchen and sunroom open to the subtropical garden while the more formal rooms retain their composure. These are practical considerations, but their effect is emotional. The more successfully they are resolved, the less the inhabitant has to think about them.
A house that constantly asks its occupants to protect it, rearrange it, or behave differently around it never quite feels generous. A room designed with genuine ease gives something back instead. This has also made me reconsider the relationship between formality and beauty. Some of the more sophisticated Australian houses I know are not particularly formal. Their quality comes from proportion, materials, craftsmanship, art, and the intelligence of their planning rather than ceremony.
That distinction matters to me. I do not want to design rooms that need an occasion to feel properly occupied, nor do I think informality requires lowering the standard of design. There is a more interesting possibility than either extreme: rigour without stiffness.
Los Angeles taught me the confidence to be decisive. London taught me the restraint to question whether a decision needed to be made at all. Australia taught me to judge by what happens after the designer leaves. Does the room work, and does it accommodate the person it was made for? Can beautiful things become part of ordinary life rather than remain on display? Above all, does the house let the people who live there forget about the design occasionally and simply live? That, increasingly, is what ease means to me.
Daniel Kostiuc Interior Design is a luxury interior design studio based in Brisbane, offering residential interior design and interior decoration across Queensland, Australia and internationally. Services include new builds, renovations, and complete furnishing projects, including space planning, custom joinery, bespoke furniture, furniture selection, lighting, art, and accessories for high-end homes.