One of the great privileges of my job is getting the opportunity to meet my entrepreneurial and design heroes. I am a big fan of biographies and documentaries and voraciously devour these to delve into the influences that make leaders in their fields excel. It is even more exciting whenWhen I picked up the eye-catching new volume with its cover, which is a contemporary take on the traditional parterre, I expected it to be simply more beautiful images of Paul’s work, which it is. Still, it is also a deeply personal account of his childhood, education, relationships, influential and larger-than-life mentors, and opportunities that have shaped all of the work that he has done to date. He was very generous in sharing his stories and gardening advice (!) with humour and self-deprecation. Calile Culture is an excellent initiative for these kinds of talks, and Brisbane is definitely now a world-class design hub – it has changed so much since I left there 30 years ago but it has a very distinctive design DNA. The Calile has been voted the 12th best hotel in the world, at the World’s Best 50 Hotels – its contemporary and timeless design sits beautifully in its spot on James Street in Fortitude Valley.
