Sarah Vo

Email Address

I am Khue -an Interior Architecture student with a strong interest in designing environments that support emotional well-being, creativity, and meaningful human experiences. My work focuses on how spatial design can shape mood, behaviour, and comfort—especially for young people and communities who benefit from calm, grounding, and thoughtfully curated spaces.

I am drawn to warm materials, soft forms, and natural tones, often taking inspiration from biophilic design and wabi-sabi principles. These elements allow me to create interiors that feel gentle, restorative, and welcoming. I enjoy exploring how light, texture, movement, and sensory cues can work together to form spaces that encourage reflection, self-expression, and personal growth.

Much of my design approach is informed by empathy and user-centred thinking. I am particularly interested in therapeutic environments such as retreat centres, creative studios, and social spaces that promote relaxation, resilience, and community connection. Through my recent work, I have explored how craft, art-making, and mindful activities can become integrated into interior environments to support emotional release and well-being.

Alongside my studies, I continue to develop skills in digital modelling, material expression, and visual communication. My goal is to build a design practice that not only creates aesthetically engaging interiors, but also spaces that genuinely enrich the lives of the people who use them.

MUSEUM OF THE HANDMADE - LOBBY

Bathed in earthy hues and soft curves, the lobby of the Museum of the Handmade opens as a gentle, grounding space. The central pool anchors the room with a natural calm, reflecting the authenticity and quiet beauty of handmade craft.

ROOT OF RESILIENCE - PRIVATE HOT BATH

This private hot bath features warm timber surfaces, soft lighting, and a circular stone platform that creates a calm, intimate atmosphere. The gentle curves and earthy tones enhance relaxation, offering a soothing space for quiet, personal rejuvenation.

ROOT OF RESILIENCE - EXHIBITION AREA

Filled with light and warm textures, this space honors the handmade works crafted by participants—turning personal creativity into a shared, meaningful experience.

ROOT OF RESILIENCE - WORKSHOP AREA

Filled with light and wrapped in soft timber curves, this workshop invites guests to shape, paint, and create—turning emotional tension into calm through the simple act of making.

ROOT OF RESILIENCE - YOGA AREA

The yoga studio features soft curved walls and timber arches that filter natural sunlight into gentle patterns across the warm wooden floor. The bright, open layout creates a calming atmosphere that supports relaxation, mindful movement, and emotional balance.

Acknowledgement of Country

The School of Design and Architecture respectfully acknowledges the Wurundjeri peoples of the Kulin Nation as the Traditional Owners and knowledge-keepers of the lands, waters and sky that surround us, where we work, learn, create, communicate and make place. We recognise that sovereignty has never been ceded and this always was and will always be Wurundjeri Country. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who continue to make a better world through design.

We extend our acknowledgement to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff, students, alumni, real-life clients, and knowledge keepers, who have contributed to our own education diversity and growth. We will continue to ensure that staff and students respectfully honour ancestral connection to Country and Place in everything that they do.

We are dedicated to the notion of design to make a better world and we acknowledge that making tools, shaping place, sharing stories, making meaning, wayfinding and collaborating have long been and continue to be both central and integral to First Peoples' cultures. We recognize that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples’ cultural contributions have continued relevance to design practice and commit to: reconciling ancestries of design and contemporary practice as well as pursuing culturally and professionally appropriate ways to engage with a diverse population of colleagues, industries and clients. In a time of treaty-making and voice we understand that there are overlaps between caring for Country and the sustainable production of goods, services, experiences, products and buildings.

Guided by the principles of respect, reconciliation, and reciprocity we undertake to indigenising and decolonising design practice by dismantling colonial structures and challenging biases that have marginalised Indigenous voices and design.

As students of SoDA you will be given opportunities to both engage with and educate yourself in Indigenous creative practices and cultural protocols through a lens of inclusivity, diversity, respect, mutual understanding, inter-cultural dialogue in all aspects of design practice. Indigenous people have been telling stories, making tools, and connecting to Country through visual media, placemaking and place marking for more than 60,000 years and these practices are part of an ongoing, evolving and live tradition.