Sharon Mackay & Wei Hsu | Adelaide Autumn 2025 Artwork

Parlour POD

Parlour POD presents convivial conversations from Parlour: gender, equity, architecture. Episodes are drawn from much-loved Seasonal Salons, recorded live across Australia. Wide-ranging and diverse stories of lives in and around architecture and the built environment are told with humour and humility. Personal and particular, intimate and engaging, each episode canvasses the complexities of careers, obstacles faced and opportunities found.

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Sharon Mackay & Wei Hsu | Adelaide Autumn 2025

October 21, 2025

Our conversationalists for this episode are Sharon Mackay and Wei Hsu. Sharon is a Director at JPE Design Studio, a role she took up following extensive experience in government and policy roles, and in communicating architecture and design to broad public audiences. Wei is an architect at Phillips/Pilkington Architects, and a huge stalwart of the Adelaide Salons.

A “child of the 70s”, Sharon spent her formative years building resilience in the country surrounded by nature. Drawn to landscape architecture, she found her people, passion for sustainability and environmental protests at RMIT. Wei describes her early but short-lived career as a photographer before discovering design and architecture. Her love for details and composition remain.

In this generous, wide-ranging conversation, Sharon and Wei discuss the strength to be found in standing up for yourself, following your instincts (in architecture and life), taking risks, and being curious. They offer wise observations on work and career – from a commitment to lifelong learning, to the power in building networks and listening to as many different perspectives as possible.

Their advice to others? Get out and about, meet people, expand your horizons. Have a go at something new, take risks, don’t be afraid.

Make the dining table, take the trip, take the risk.

This episode was recorded live on Kaurna Country at the 2025 Adelaide Autumn Salon. Held at Brickworks Design Studio on 27 March 2025, the Salon was organised by Alison McFadyen. Photos: Shaun Li.

We hope you enjoy Parlour POD, live recordings from our much loved Seasonal Salon series. For more great Parlour content, head to our website, and follow Parlour on Instagram or LinkedIn. To support our ongoing work, join the Parlour Collective!