Studio Shields

•WISHLIST•

A little peek inside my current (uncut version) shopping wish list for The Design Files feature today 🌷🍒🧚🏼‍♀️

Maybe it’s spring, maybe it’s the jasmine filling the air, or maybe it’s the new 2026 ERDEM spring collection ~ florals! stripes! bold colour! but I am DEEP in my folklore, fairy, whimsical era right now.

My eyes are wandering towards things that feel a little strange, sculptural, nostalgic, mythical and full of personality. Vintage Isparta rugs next to contemporary Australian design. Earthy browns with hits of lime.

Beautiful art from Renée Estée , weird little creatures by Lilach Ben Sasson Mileikowski , chunky forms like the Stanley lounge from Dowel Jones , sculpted forms like the bark stool by Jacqueline Kaytar (which I am currently paying off) whacky Murano glass chandelier and things that make absolutely no sense together until suddenly… they do.

Because that’s really how I love to build an interior. Thread by thread, story by story, collecting things that make you feel something until you’ve created a world that could only belong to you.

My current wish list is a rather delicious mix of pieces for home, pieces already making their way into Studio Shields projects and a few dream acquisitions I’ll continue staring longingly at until my bank account catches up with my eyes & heart.

Thank you The Design Files for letting me indulge my inner (affluent) bowerbird 🐦‍⬛✨

•IN THE PRESS•

Our beloved Joy Haus is in the new issue of Houses : Kitchens + Bathrooms issue 21 and this one has put a very big smile on my face.

A home that really does live up to its name ~ bold, expressive and bursting with as much personality as the beautiful family who lives within it.

Colour became a way of telling their story throughout the house. Blues echo the nearby ocean, burgundy draws from the richness of the earth, soft yellow amplifies the morning light and bright orange appears as a little wry smile 🧡 a reflection of our clients and their fabulous outlook on life.

The kitchen sits at the heart of it all. Cork underfoot, Cherry Blossom marble, stainless steel, colour and plenty of room for the rhythms of family life ~ breakfast, homework, cooking, a glass of w**e and friends gathered around the island.

As you move into the more private spaces, the palette deepens and the mood shifts. The primary ensuite becomes immersive and calming, while the children’s bathroom goes in the opposite direction ~ powder blue, chunky bulbous forms and little handles that look like sea creatures emerging from the joinery. Over the top, bright and FUN 🛁🫧

Each room has its own personality, but together they form one chromatic journey through the home ~ balancing place, people, mood and a little element of surprise.

It’s incredibly special seeing Joy Haus captured in print and having the story behind all that colour told so beautifully.

Thank you HOUSES for capturing the heart of this project so beautifully. And forever grateful to my wonderful clients for trusting me to make their family home a little bit wild, a little unexpected and very, very joyful ✨

Project~ Joy Haus, Mount Eliza
Featured ~ Houses
Words ~ Rebecca Gross
Interior Design + Decoration ~ 𝗥 𝗨 𝗕 𝗬 𝗦 𝗛 𝗜 𝗘 𝗟 𝗗 𝗦
Built by ~ INNER URBAN GROUP
Photography ~ Martina Gemmola
Stylist ~ Jessica Rayment

•SEPTEMBER WRAP•

Well, September didn’t hold back. Like a true Virgo, she arrived and said, “hold up, we’ve got BUSINESS.”

We kicked off with the most beautiful oil painting class with CASSANDRA LYNCH | Australian Artist highly recommend, such a gorgeous evening. Then, quite literally the next day, I was whisked off to Sydney at 5am for the Australian House & Garden Top 50 Rooms Awards where, in a very surreal turn of events, I WON the Colour category alongside GREG NATALE ~ a true design icon. A huge pinch-me moment made even sweeter by receiving a benmazey trophy and finally meeting Britt Ross , Rising Star of the Year!

Then September got a serious spring in her step.

New projects kicked off with Bought Agency . Casa De Ember, (Fitzroy project) is in full swing with curation, tilling & painting. Eliza Legal is nearing completion with art and lighting going in. SOAK.BAR Sydney is heading into construction. Stitch (Beaumaris project) is at sign-off for window furnishings and custom carpet colours from Halcyon Lake , Howitt St (Canberra project) has finished installing all our vintage & Volker Haug Studio lighting. AND we squeezed in a trip to Castlemaine to see Mrs Finch as the keys were handed over, ready for her transformation in the next month.

Somewhere amongst all of that, our Belle magazine feature with King Living went live shot by lana landsberry AND The Nest (Syd project) landed on The Design Files A very big month for seeing our one woman show, Studio Shields out in the wild.

Mix in gallery visits, collection launches, sourcing, site visits and a dinner with Hothaus glass studio Amanda Dziedzic STUDIO ECLECT that were both genuinely a year in the making… squeeze in some painting, some design book research… and that was September.

And you’ll laugh, because October is somehow going to be even more chaotic. Then straight into November. So grab the reins, we’re going for a ride 🐎

There are also LOTS of new faces here lately, and I’m so bloody excited to have you here. Welcome to the Studio Shields universe 🧚‍♀️✨

•SMOOTH OPERATOR•

Two weeks. That’s it.

From the initial briefing to spatial planning, full design direction, colour, furniture, lighting and a complete specification schedule - Smooth Operator for Bought Agency came together in two very big, very fast weeks.

We went HARD.

But sometimes those are the projects that just click.

Bought knows how to work a room. They’ve got confidence to the way they operate and that became the starting point for the whole design.

So, naturally, I gave it a soundtrack.

Smooth Operator.

Inspired by Sade’s 1980s classic, we wanted to take that warmth, swagger and polish and translate it into a workplace that felt unmistakably Bought.

Rich timber. Tactile fabrics. Expressive colour. Chrome. Sculptural lighting. A little gloss. A little sexiness.

More late-night jazz bar than corporate boardroom.

Because this isn’t an office that needs to wear a suit to prove it knows what it’s doing.

Upstairs is where the operator gets to work - bold, bright and hardworking. A space for the calls, negotiations, research, collaboration and general daily chaos of getting the deal done.

Then downstairs, the tempo changes.

Richer. Moodier. A little more seductive.

Deep colour, warm timber, layered lighting, and furniture with presence create a space for client meetings, conversations, podcasting and content.

Talk property at three. Pour a drink at five.

This is the kind of work we bloody love doing at Studio Shields - getting under the skin of a business and translating its personality into an interior that feels completely and utterly its own. Takes me back to the ad days where you’d work on 24hr pitches.

Two weeks. One clear idea. Full send.

A special thank you to BIANCA FIELD for trusting my instinct and direction on this one. Can’t wait for everything to start taking shape in the next couple of weeks ✨

• IN THE PRESS•

Okay... this is the one I’ve been teasing.

In the latest issue of Belle magazine you’ll find SIX whole pages created in collaboration with King Living shot at our home, The View.

And this one brings me a LOT of joy.

The challenge? Taking a brand with its own established design language and weaving it into mine ~ without either losing its voice.

I wanted the King pieces to feel like they had always belonged here.
Woven amongst vintage finds, Australian art, pieces Pat and I have made, collected objects, rich timber, muddy colours, pattern and texture. Nothing screaming SHOWROOM! Everything becoming another layer in our story.

Like a bloody good lasagne, it’s the layers that create the richness.

Before interiors, I spent six years as an Art Director in advertising, and that brain never left. I’m still thinking about narrative, composition, brand, colour and the hundreds of tiny decisions that make something feel unmistakably you ~ weave that with my design language and you have some serious MAGIC ✨

My colour. My layering. My curation. My voice.

And seeing that point of view ~ something I’ve spent years developing, refining and learning to trust ~ across SIX PAGES of Belle feels pretty bloody special.

A huge thank you to the beautiful teams at Belle magazine and King Living for trusting me to do what I do & share that with your audiences. A special thank you to Tanya Buchanan for thinking of me 🤎

What a bloody moment!!!

SIX! PAGES! IN! BELLE! 💥 Issue is out now with some incredible talents.

Design, art direction, curation & styling 𝗥 𝗨 𝗕 𝗬 𝗦 𝗛 𝗜 𝗘 𝗟 𝗗 𝗦
Photography lana landsberry
Words Hannah James
In collaboration with King Living X Belle magazine

I had so much fun curating this edit for Bonnie and Neil🤎💚 our home The View looks absolutely delicious ~ full of texture, colour & pattern. Read the full story at Bonnie & Neil Journal ✨

Joy Haus featured on The Design Files 🧡

•PONDER•

Ponder is an extension of Studio Shields’ ongoing exploration of material honesty, reuse, and narrative-led making directed by The chair is constructed entirely from salvaged Oregon timber, no new timber introduced and no attempt to disguise its former life.

Oregon is a timber of inherent contradiction: light and dark, soft and dense, orderly and unruly. Rather than resisting these qualities, the chair leans into them. The grain is celebrated, interrupted, and re-stitched. Joins are intentionally visible; natural lines are broken and reformed.

The form is organic and sculptural, achieved through hand carving rather than precision machining. It will take the shape of a high-backed chair with an adjoining side table, a companion piece designed for slowing down. A chair for reading, pausing, resting a glass. A place to ponder.

Title of Work: Ponder
Materials: Reclaimed Oregon Timber
Design: .shields &
Construction & making:

On display at 100 Chairs .associates
Exhibition open till Sunday

Credits ~
Ingrid Rhule - Creative Director & Photographer
Ellen Keillar - Creative Director & Producer
Mark Harper - Lighting and Technical Director
Chad Weerasighe - Technical Support and Video Production
Kayell Australia & Boncolor - Lighting Equipment

•SYNTHESIS•

Synthesis is an immersive interior installation curated by Ruby Shields, principal of Studio Shields, with a collection of 48 Australian artists, makers & designers.

Synthesis explores the emotional capacity of space; how colour, material, light and scent shape the way we feel, inhabit and connect. The exhibition unfolds as a sequence of layered domestic vignettes that read both as distinct moments and as a resolved whole. Nothing sits in isolation, each piece existing in relation to another, forming a cohesive interior language that prioritises atmosphere over display.

A collective authorship, many voices woven together and resolved as one, revealing the power of interior design to hold, to move, to stay with us long after we leave.

This is a space with memory. With personality. With weight. With magic.

So what are you waiting for? Come in & stay a while.

14-22 May
11am-5.30pm daily
Bishop’s Parlour, Abbotsford Convent
1 St Heliers St, Abbotsford
Photography by .xyz
Portrait by

This event is part of Melbourne Design Week 2026, an initiative of the Victorian Government in collaboration with the