Dana Stephens

Architect
QLD REG No. 6105

How we experience the environment around us, both built and in nature, has always been important to me.

I can’t remember a time when I didn’t want to be an architect. 

Childhood holidays spent motorbike riding and exploring the bush, constructing huts out of loose timber and foliage, were outlets for me growing up and fuelled my curiosity for a career in architecture. 

Drawing from this, I’m interested in how the tactility of materials employed in our work, particularly raw materials, can impact a child’s experience of their learning environment, assist them in self-regulating and instil a sense of curiosity and imagination.

The driving force for me is returning after the students and staff have settled into their new learning environment, to see the joy and sense of ownership they have for their own learning spaces. 

I’m committed to integrating external and internal learning environments and I’m enjoying our client’s confidence to allow us to do this. 

Connections with nature and linking external environments through meaningful collaboration with landscape architects provide richer learning spaces.

I believe our work is successful because we question everything we do in respect to the student and the experience of childhood – often reflecting on the child within ourselves.