Mel Bax on designing homes around the people who live in them, embracing colour and character, and why timelessness has little to do with playing it safe.
There is no recognisable Studio Mel Bax look.
For founder Mel Bax, this is entirely intentional. Rather than developing a signature formula and repeating it from house to house, every project begins with the people who will call it home.
“We never want someone to walk into one of our projects and immediately recognise it as a Studio Mel Bax house,” she says. “We want them to recognise the people who live there.”
The process begins with listening.
“We spend a lot of time understanding how our clients actually live, what matters to them and what they want their home to feel like, not just what they want it to look like.”
We caught up with Mel to talk about the studio’s evolving approach, its growing confidence and why a home can be colourful, layered and full of personality without losing its sense of longevity.
It Starts With Listening
For Mel, creating a personal home begins with paying attention.
“It might be a piece of furniture, an artwork, something collected on their travels or simply the way they like to spend time together as a family,” Mel explains. “Those details tell us a lot.”
From there, Studio Mel Bax translates those individual fragments into a home that feels personal to the people living there.
The philosophy has remained consistent since Mel first started the practice, but the studio’s confidence has grown.
“The ethos hasn’t changed, but I think we’ve become more confident in our design proposals.”
As the portfolio has grown, so too has the willingness to push an idea further, introduce something unexpected and encourage clients to make choices that bring real character to their homes.
Every client, building and brief calls for something different. There is no formula to repeat.
More Than Neutral
Mel’s own relationship with decoration has also shifted over time.
Coming from a modernist architectural training, Mel’s approach has gradually moved away from the idea that sophistication requires restraint.
“I’m increasingly invested in creating houses that really feel like homes.”
Texture, layering, colour, pattern and considered details all have a role to play.
“Architecture doesn’t have to be stripped back to be sophisticated. There can be real joy in richness.”
That same thinking also shapes her view of timelessness.
There is a tendency to assume that longevity means playing things safe: neutral walls, restrained architectural details and colour reserved for the objects that can easily be changed. Mel sees things differently.
“For me, timelessness comes from quality rather than neutrality.”
Permanent fixtures and architectural elements can be colourful, dramatic and playful. What matters is whether they have been thoughtfully designed, well made and crafted from quality materials.
The aim is not to follow whatever happens to be fashionable, but to create homes that will still feel exciting years later because they genuinely belong to the people living in them.
A Shared Point of View
As Studio Mel Bax continues to grow, collaboration has become an increasingly important part of the process.
Across multiple projects, Mel and her team have worked alongside Laura Parkinson and her team at Palmer & Stone. These experiences have reinforced something Mel values deeply: projects become more interesting when different disciplines genuinely work together.
That sense of collaboration is also reflected in the evolution of the studio itself.
The recent move from Mel Architect to Studio Mel Bax marks an important new chapter. The new name better reflects what the practice has become: no longer centred around one individual, but a growing studio with a shared ambition and a clear point of view.
The studio is now opening its books to more projects, bringing opportunities to work with new people, different types of homes and fresh challenges. For Mel, growth is about moving forward without losing sight of the principles that have shaped the work from the beginning.
What remains unchanged is the belief that a successful home should feel personal.
As Studio Mel Bax enters its next chapter, the ambition remains simple: to create homes full of character, individuality and joy.
