The Great Indoors: Redefining Commercial Interior Design in Sydney

The Great Indoors creates bold, strategic interiors that balance form and function. Their work is defined by seamless execution, a strong brand narrative, and design that enhances both experience and performance.

Office Interior Design - JBS&G Office Design - Concept Sketch Drawing

As a leading commercial interior design studio in Sydney, The Great Indoors blends architectural expertise with interior creativity to achieve outstanding results across retail design, hospitality interiors, and workplace office design. Our approach ensures every space is not only visually striking but also high-performing, compliant, and cost-effective.

Architectural Precision Meets Interior Creativity

The Great Indoors stands out for its ability to integrate architectural thinking with interior design innovation. From spatial planning and finishes to branding and compliance, every detail is carefully considered. This balance ensures commercial interiors that are both inspiring and practical, delivering lasting value for businesses.

Retail Interior Design Sydney: Driving Sales Through Experience

We specialise in retail interior design and shop fit-outs that elevate customer experience and drive sales. By combining smart layouts, strategic lighting, and strong brand storytelling, we create retail spaces that guide customer flow, highlight products, and leave a lasting impression. From boutique shops to large-scale display suites, our designs engage both emotion and function.

Retail Design - Samsung Business HQ - Concept Sketch Drawing

Hospitality Interior Design: Cafés, Restaurants & Bars

In the hospitality sector, design must balance atmosphere and efficiency. The Great Indoors works with café owners, restaurateurs, and bar operators to create interiors that attract customers while supporting smooth service flow. We manage approvals with local authorities, prepare CDC and DA submissions, and coordinate with builders and shopfitters to ensure projects open on time and within budget.

Hospitality Interior Design - Ima Sushi - Concept sketch drawing

Workplace & Office Design Sydney: Enhancing Performance

A well-designed workplace drives productivity, wellbeing, and culture. Our office interior design services deliver spaces that encourage collaboration, integrate technology, and reflect brand identity. From agile offices to client-facing work environments, The Great Indoors creates workplaces where design enhances both performance and experience.

Office Interior Design - JBS&G Office Design - Concept Sketch Drawing

Seamless Project Delivery: Cost Planning to Construction

We know successful projects rely on strong execution. That’s why The Great Indoors provides detailed cost planning, design documentation, and end-to-end project coordination. Working with trusted builders and shopfitters, we deliver commercial interiors with precision, efficiency, and no surprises—every time.

Sydney’s Experts in Commercial Interior Design

At The Great Indoors, we design more than interiors—we create commercial environments that embody a brand story, support business goals, and deliver measurable impact. Whether it’s a retail store, hospitality venue, or modern workplace, our projects are defined by bold ideas, strategic design, and seamless delivery.

Co-architecture - Top 15 Interior Designers in Sydney

Best Café Designers in Sydney: How The Great Indoors Helps Café Owners Bring Their Vision to Life

Launching or renovating a café in Sydney is exciting – but it also comes with challenges. From securing council approvals to coordinating trades and delivering a standout café interior design, there’s a lot to manage. That’s why many café owners turn to The Great Indoors, recognised among the best café designers in Sydney.

Our role goes beyond creating beautiful spaces – we also manage the café fit-out Sydney process from approvals through to handover, giving owners confidence that their project is in safe hands.

Café Approvals Made Simple

One of the most common roadblocks café owners face is navigating approvals. Councils and certifiers have strict requirements for food preparation, accessibility, fire safety and customer amenities. We handle this process end-to-end – preparing documentation, liaising with your design manager, and managing submissions for design manager approvals or a Complying Development Certificate (CDC).

This ensures your café can open on time, without costly delays or compliance issues.

Streamlined Café Project Management

A successful café fit-out in Sydney involves coordinating a wide range of contractors – joiners, electricians, plumbers, flooring installers and more. Without the right oversight, timelines and budgets can quickly blow out.

As experienced hospitality design consultants, The Great Indoors provides full project management. We act as your single point of contact, overseeing trades, maintaining quality, and ensuring your café is ready to welcome customers when promised.

Smart, Functional Café Interior Design

Of course, the heart of any café is its design. A space that looks good and functions seamlessly makes all the difference to customer experience and staff efficiency.

Our approach to café interior design in Sydney balances atmosphere with practicality. We think about how baristas work behind the counter, how customers flow through the space, and how finishes will hold up in a busy hospitality environment. The result? A café that reflects your brand and keeps customers coming back.

Why Café Owners Choose The Great Indoors

• Proven expertise in café approvals and project delivery

• Local knowledge of Sydney council requirements

• Full service: design, approvals, and project management

• Tailored café interior design that attracts and retains customers

Open Your Café with Confidence

If you’re planning a new café or looking to refresh an existing one, The Great Indoors can manage the entire process – from concept and café interior design Sydney approvals to a fully completed café fit-out Sydney.

With our expertise in design, compliance, and project management, you can focus on what you do best – serving great coffee and building your business.

Contact The Great Indoors today to discover how we can bring your café vision to life.

Designing Display Suites That Drive Property Sales

In today’s competitive property market, display suites play a crucial role in shaping buyer perceptions and influencing sales outcomes. More than just a presentation space, a well-designed display suite is an immersive environment that allows prospective buyers to experience the lifestyle and quality of a development before it is built.

At The Great Indoors, we specialise in creating display suites that not only inspire buyers but also provide developers and agents with powerful tools to achieve sales success. By combining strategic spatial planning, refined interiors, and tailored finishes, our approach ensures every display suite is designed to highlight the full potential of a property.

The Role of Display Suites in Real Estate Marketing

For developers and sales teams, a display suite is the first physical touchpoint in the buyer journey. It is where brand, vision, and design come together to tell a compelling story. From residential apartments and townhouses to commercial property developments, a display suite allows buyers to visualise themselves within a space, building confidence and trust in the project.

By incorporating integrated branding, interactive digital displays, and tangible product information, The Great Indoors ensures each suite offers both inspiration and clarity. Buyers can explore finishes, touch and feel materials, and interact with digital tools that demonstrate layouts, amenities, and lifestyle opportunities — all of which help create an emotional connection while providing the practical details needed to make an informed decision.

Creating Immersive Buyer Experiences

Our team understands that buyers are looking for more than just floor plans — they are looking for lifestyle. That’s why our display suite designs focus on creating environments that feel authentic, aspirational, and engaging. Whether it’s the flow of the layout, the quality of the materials, or the integration of technology, every detail is considered to influence buyer confidence and accelerate sales outcomes.

Why Developers Choose The Great Indoors

• Sydney display suite and sales office design specialists with proven experience across residential and commercial projects.

• Expertise in property development interiors that balance market appeal with functionality.

• Integration of brand storytelling, digital interactivity, and tactile material displays to deliver a holistic buyer experience.

• A track record of delivering immersive sales environments that support developers and agents in achieving strong sales results.

The Future of Display Suites

As property marketing evolves, display suites are becoming more interactive and experience-driven. Virtual reality walk-throughs, digital selection tools, and multi-sensory environments are increasingly being used to complement traditional design. At The Great Indoors, we continue to innovate in this space, ensuring our clients’ projects stand out in a crowded market.

The Great Indoors is proud to partner with developers and real estate professionals to deliver display suites that inspire, inform, and sell.

Top 15 Interior Designers in Sydney, Australia for 2025

Co-architecture

We’re excited to present our curated selection of the top interior designers in Sydney you need to know about. Get ready to be inspired by the creativity and innovation of Sydney's leading interior design talents.

Sydney, a bustling metropolis on Australia's east coast, is renowned for its iconic architectural landmarks, breathtaking landscapes, and vibrant cultural scene. It’s no wonder this city is home to an array of exceptional interior designers who excel at transforming spaces into epitomes of style, functionality, and sophistication.

Whether you’re planning a renovation, building a new home, or simply looking for fresh inspiration, the interior designers featured in this list will ignite your creative imagination. From contemporary and sleek to timeless and eclectic, these experts bring a wealth of experience and an extraordinary attention to detail that will captivate you.

Sales and Marketing Suite for House and Land Package

The Great Indoors is a Sydney-based, award-winning design consultancy in architecture and interior design for residential, retail, hospitality, and workplaces. With over 25 years of experience, we bring strategy, creativity, and hands-on expertise to every project, managing everything from design and construction to shop fits and commercial fit-outs. Our end-to-end approach ensures every space is seamless, functional, and beautifully designed. 
 

Retail Store Design in Optometry

Read our story featured here - Retail Design Blog

Retail Design Blog showcases the latest in retail store design innovation and inspiration.

Customer experience and brand strategy are at the heart of an alluring new optometry store in Sydney designed by The Great Indoors.

‘Details Are Beautiful’ is the motto of 1001 Optometry, an optometrist and eyewear specialist with more than a dozen stores in Melbourne and Sydney. Its latest store, an inviting space in Sydney’s Chatswood Chase shopping centre, distils that vision. Designed by Manly-based practice The Great Indoors, the store not only offers the expertise to help its customers see everything more clearly, but also places a keen focus on the details of the space itself.

Retail Store Design in Optometry

Cafe design and fitout tips

Top tips on how to plan, design and build a successful café fitouts from Sydney architecture and interior design firm – The Great Indoors

• Be clear about your brief and what you would like to achieve from the project to ensure your business’s success.

• Work with your designer and shopfitter to achieve your desired look and feel within your budget range.

• Strength in partnerships in building a great team will benefit the journey in working towards a common goal. 

• Have you included within your budget the required building services, demolition, design fees and approval costs?

• Do you have a timeframe for achieving your goals, from the appointment of consultants to signing the lease, to the first day of trade? 

• Work closely with your designer and shopfitter from the very early stages of your project to build your budget. The early engagement of experts ensures professional, upfront advice.

• Set realistic goals. Is your project a complete renovation, partial refurbishment, or are you moving into a new space? 

• Do you have a brand, menu, and signage concepts ready to go, or are you looking for a new brand or a refresh? Uniforms can make a big impression on customers, as does your overall experience, communication, warm customer service, and smiles. These elements do go a long way in receiving great reviews and customers coming back time and time again.

• Building and shopfitting are complex processes that require considerable planning and time. Would you like some help with sourcing commercial kitchen equipment and furniture?

• Being knowledgeable about the approval process – Do you require landlord approval, dependent on your site project location and whether you need DA or CDC approval?

The Great Indoors team can help you build a budget for a café and restaurant fitout through our unique partnerships with commercial builders and shopfitters, and work with you to navigate the process from start to finish.

On site photography of the construction process

Eye-Catching Optometry Retail Store Design

Customer experience and brand strategy are at the heart of an alluring new optometry store in Sydney designed by The Great Indoors.

‘Details Are Beautiful’ is the motto of 1001 Optometry, an optometrist and eyewear specialist with more than a dozen stores in Melbourne and Sydney. Its latest store, an inviting space in Sydney’s Chatswood Chase shopping centre, distils that vision. Designed by Manly-based practice The Great Indoors, the store not only offers the expertise to help its customers see everything more clearly, but also places a keen focus on the details of the space itself.

Further into the store are zones for eye tests and frame fittings; this approach aims to establish a ‘visually open’ experience of visiting the optometrist.

The store’s design guides the shopping journey. As customers enter, they’re greeted with frames housed in handsome glass cases on both sides. Further into the store are zones for eye tests and frame fittings; this approach aims to establish a ‘visually open’ experience of visiting the optometrist. This ethos is cemented via the design of the optometry rooms, which are semi-private, offering a view of the testing experience and equipment. These rooms are framed by glazed walls, though curtains can be drawn for more private consultations.

Eye-catching details begin before customers even enter the store. Shopfront panels are made from fluted glass and warmly backlit, while the clarity of mirrors and glass cases is offset by Laminex timber joinery wall displays and optometry room walls. Adjustable LED lighting by Trend Lighting emphasises the space’s welcoming ambience.

The Great Indoors’ design embodies 1001 Optometry’s brand focus: foregrounding and celebrating the optometry experience and its positive impact on health and wellbeing. Customer experience, brand design and interior design were the three crucial elements of the space.

For each project, The Great Indoors takes a multi-pronged approach. While good looks and customer comfort were essential for the Chatswood store, so, too, was gaining approval throughout the process from the shopping centre’s landlord. The firm also ensured there was inbuilt durability in this high-traffic space, achieved in part by the use of Robertson’s brick floor tiles and Skheme floor tiles – elements which also establish visual interest and depth.

The Great Indoors’ sophisticated approach has cemented its position as a leader in retail, hospitality and office design.

Since its founding in 2013, The Great Indoors has blended creativity with strategic and commercial priorities. Its sophisticated approach – beginning with freehand sketches of a space, followed by an extensive analysis of customer priorities and underscored by a commitment to deadlines and budgets – has cemented its position as a leader in retail, hospitality and office design.

1001 Optometry Chatswood Chase is a key example of the practice’s ability to balance client needs while embracing a brand’s vernacular within an eye-catching space.

Story by retail interior design experts - The Great Indoors

Excerpt from The Local Project

Y3 Retail Store Design in Sydney

Now Open: Adidas x Yohji Yamamoto Collab Y-3 Gets a Debut Australian Flagship Store

Pioneering streetwear label Y-3 now has a dedicated Sydney shopfront. Find understated Japanese style in sporty suiting and luxe activewear alongside basics, jackets and footwear.

Caroline Ball first encountered Y-3, the permanent collaboration between Japanese designer Yohji Yamamoto and German sportswear giant Adidas, after a big night out in Berlin.

“I was in a very moodily lit boutique on a freezing cold morning in Berlin before consuming the best morning-after sandwich I’ve ever eaten,” she laughs.

“It was mind-blowing to me. Y-3 is the brand that invented the category of streetwear – it’s weird for our generation to imagine a time when it didn’t exist."

Now Ball, known for her fashion concept store Sorry Thanks I Love You, has brought Y-3 to Australia with the opening of a flagship store in Westfield Sydney in the CBD.

“Y-3 is very original in that it blends Adidas’s sports heritage, high-performance fabrics and manufacturing capabilities with Yohji’s elegant iconic silhouettes and tailoring,” Ball says.

The new Sydney store, launched on March 1, carries all five categories within the collection: tailoring (jackets and suiting), performance (sportswear), outerwear (jackets and weatherproof pieces), core pieces (cotton basics designed for layering) and footwear and accessories.

“Each piece is an experiment in seeing a fashion garment through a sporting lens, or vice versa. I think the size of the collection and the longevity of this partnership is testament to the brand’s experience bringing Yohji’s craftsmanship together with Adidas’s high-tech prowess,” Ball says.

Store design is in line with a new “art gallery meets sporting arena” concept the brand launched late in 2022 for its outlets around the world.

Portuguese cork columns, discs of mottled blue recycled plastics, recycled rainbow-flecked rubber and custom-fabricated brushed stainless-steel racking are among the elements of the fit-out, which also features an old-school projector.

“My personal favourites are the stools made from layers of granite, pink and blue recycled plastics and spongy black rubber, like giant liquorice allsorts, and curvy joinery inspired by playgrounds and gym equipment,” Ball says.

Inside the shop you’ll find the new Y-3 collection Chapter One, which features plenty of archival pieces in celebration of the label’s 20th anniversary, with Chapter Two arriving in early April.

“Anyone who has come across Y-3 will know that its production is of the highest level, and the brand itself is all about understated style. There are secret pockets-in-pockets, lots of very subtle black-on-black motifs, and even tiny QR codes on inner care instruction labels.”

It’s that relaxed and functional aesthetic that Ball is banking on when it comes to the local market. “The lightweight, high-performance fabrics are perfect for our climate and the fact that these pieces are so comfortable and easy to care for makes them really great everyday pieces. A modern uniform for the streets.”

Ball says she’s long had her eye on Y-3, and when the opportunity came to partner with the brand she founded the company Y-3 Australia and New Zealand, amassed a local team, and jumped on it.

“Our partnership with Y-3 encompasses both countries, and we’re very excited to be opening in other locations across both countries, with Melbourne being the next city,” Ball says.

Excerpt from Broadsheet

Fuel and Convenience Design Sydney

Story by retail and supermarket interior design expert - The Great Indoors

Jack & Co is one stop shop for your fuel, food and convenience needs, it’s also a bakery and barista coffee offer. Jack and co is no ordinary petrol station, it feels and looks more like a cool café. Since the opening of the store design and new brand refresh there has been a real uptick in sales – 

'The new refreshed stores at last count have seen an increase in sales of up to 30%'

We have been working with Jack and Co's team and progressing the brand & architecture components to ensure the new brand refresh can be successfully applied to number of existing key sites in Sydney's (Northwood & Pymble) & Regional NSW Taree. New updates have been created across a number of touch points including new product ranges, staff uniforms, menus, packaging, interior design, architecture & signage elements. 

Convenience food, grab and go, barista made coffee, daily grocery essentials and fuel can happily co-exist under the same roof. 

The new retail strategy is a standout within this category as it feels boutique and welcoming with a great new healthy product range and made on site products for the bakery, sausage rolls and pies. The standard petrol station model of fumes, security screens across the counter have been removed and stick sugary sweets and drinks have all been removed or reflected to the back of the store.

The project was a partnership between The Great Indoors (Architecture & Interior Design) & Alabaster (Brand design, signage & packaging.

The photography shows the before & after, the design makeover the store of applying a new canvas to an existing building, The Great Indoors has transformed the site at a reduced cost and faster program of works rather than progressing with a new building, saving money and time by working with the client to deliverable a new concept without breaking the budget.

Text by Lee Hopkinson

Optometry Retail Design in Sydney

Story by Retail Interior Design experts - The Great Indoors

Eyewear retailer 1001 Optometry is refurbishing 25 to 30 stores located in shopping centres, implementing the brand’s “Details are Beautiful” strategy.

The company tapped The Great Indoors interior designer Gesa Hopkinson for the refurbishment, which features glazed walls to allow guests to view the optometry equipment and testing rooms.

The interior’s design elements include oak timber walls, adjustable LED lighting, and closable curtains for customers who opt for private consultations.

“Overall, the key focus is to elevate the optometry process and create transparency and views into the optometry equipment and testing rooms so that the store design visually indicates more about the retail and service design experience (elevating the key service of optometry) rather than hiding the optometry rooms and the process behind walls,” said Hopkinson.

The company says materials were sourced from commercial suppliers engaged in “sensible and environmentally focused operations”.

Source: Excerpt from Inside Retail article.

Cafe Design Sydney

Story by Cafe Interior Design experts - The Great Indoors

Life Grain Café at Prince of Wales Randwick – Shortlisted for Best Hospitality Grab N Go Sydney Design Awards 2025

Life Grain has a direct connection with food that originates from the earth, which is directly connected through the application of strategic biophilic design principles. The design focuses on material colours that connect with the brand palette of Life Grain, indoor plants are used to connect with nature, warm timbers are used for the horizontal planting boxes behind the counter, wall claddings, and counter front finishes. 

There is a deeper connection to the earth and nature through the use of the warmer materials and earthy tones; studies indicate that the use of timber within the built environment significantly positively affects our well-being. 
The hospital environment can be challenging and stressful. The cafe has been designed with this in mind to bring peace, tranquillity and a welcome break for staff, patients & visitors. The project celebrates the client's desire, Life Grain, to vastly improve the quality of food served within the hospital network.

Excerpt from Driven by Design Awards