Kirk Lenard

Kirk is a Canadian architect who has lived in Sydney since 2000 after moving from New York where he spent seven years developing an expertise in retail design, working on a vast number of projects for some of the world’s best known brands such as Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Estee Lauder and Christain Dior. In Australia, Kirk has established a reputation for his passionate designs, pragmatic attitude, and attention to detail. His in-depth understanding of the needs of retailers and a thorough work ethic have allowed him to develop a unique product-driven model for designing shops, hotels and restaurants.

Throughout his career Kirk has fostered long-term relationships with many clients (some for over 15 years), providing testimony to his dedication and professionalism. For many brands (including Simone Perele, Chantecaille and Oroton) he has revisited his own original designs over the years, developing distinct new looks addressing the client’s changing needs and styles. As a personal commitment Kirk keeps a firm grasp on global trends and places a high value on learning from the many cultures where he has lived, worked and studied including Paris, London, Tokyo, LA, New York, Toronto and Rome.

Prior to starting LDA, Kirk held senior roles at some of Australia’s largest and most notable design practices including two years at Geyer where he was Creative Design Leader and headed up Sydney’s Retail Design team. There he was responsible for projects ranging from the award-winning Cult Beauty cosmetics counter in David Jones, to a major re-design of the Westpac Bank branches and a masterplan development for a 30,000m² retail mall at The Galeries Victoria in Sydney’s CBD. Before Geyer, Kirk designed the award winning 3000m² departures terminal retail precinct at Sydney International Airport (in association with Tobias Theodore) and was Senior Associate at DEM where he designed a first place entry in an international competition for a 9000m² retail complex in Shenzen China, as well as a number of high profile Sydney CBD projects.

Kirk’s first project in Australia was the Louis Vuitton Global Store in Sydney (a design he developed at Peter Marino + Associates in New York) which lead to a number of other solo commissions including; the Loewe flagship boutique; a store in Cannes for the luxury jeweller Fred; the Vault recording studio in Balmain; as well as a number of residential projects.

Kirk has had work published in Domain, Monument, Interior Fitout, Belle, and has been profiled in Harper's Bazaar and Vogue Australia. He has given lectures on retail design at Designex, the Institute of Store Planners, local colleges, and acted as a judge for the ISP Student Design Awards. From late 2005 to early 2007 Kirk relocated temporarily to New York City to open a satellite office and concentrate on LDA’s US-based clients (Chatecaille, MAC, Toto, etc.) whilst continuing to oversee the design and delivery of many Australian projects including the Oroton shop in Sydney’s QVB.