Our Practice

Buildings should improve with time.

Solaris Realty is an architecture and development studio based in Melbourne, working on high-end homes and multi-residential projects.

We believe architecture should do more than secure a planning permit or photograph well on completion. A successful building continues to reveal itself through occupation, adapting to changing lives while retaining its clarity, usefulness and sense of place.

Design, in our view, is only one part of that process. Understanding planning, construction, finance and long-term ownership is equally important. Every decision made early in a project influences what it ultimately becomes.

That belief informs everything we do, from the first feasibility study to the final walk-through.

Meet Cyndy

Some architects begin with design. Cyndy began with delivery.

Long before studying architecture, she was coordinating residential developments while completing a Bachelor of Commerce at the University of Melbourne. Working from the client's side meant learning how projects succeed or fail through planning approvals, consultant coordination, construction and commercial decision-making. It was here that she developed a lasting belief that good architecture cannot be separated from the realities of building.

Rather than seeing those constraints as limitations, she wanted to understand them well enough to design within them. That curiosity led her to architecture.

She completed both her Bachelor of Architectural Design and Master of Architecture at Monash University, graduating with Distinction, before contributing to projects ranging from boutique residential developments to a $600 million mixed-use precinct.

Today she approaches every project with two complementary perspectives. One asks whether a proposal is commercially viable, buildable and capable of surviving the complexities of delivery. The other asks whether it will still feel generous, considered and relevant decades after construction. Good architecture exists where those perspectives overlap.

Her graduating thesis, The New Embassy, explored architecture's relationship with ecology and place, proposing that buildings should acknowledge the wider systems they inhabit rather than existing as isolated objects. The project received a commendation in the Peter Elliott Architecture + Urban Design Prize, recognising drawing as a method of inquiry as much as representation. That approach continues to shape the practice today, where drawing remains the primary tool for thinking, testing and refining ideas.

Cyndy works in English and Mandarin and collaborates closely with planners, surveyors, engineers, landscape architects and specialist consultants throughout every stage of a project, maintaining continuity from feasibility through to construction.

Credentials

Registered Architect Architects Registration Board of Victoria · Master of Architecture (Distinction) Monash University · Bachelor of Architectural Design (Distinction) Monash University · Dean's Scholarship 2018–2020 · Bachelor of Commerce (Accounting & Finance) University of Melbourne · Advanced Diploma of Conveyancing · Diploma of Finance & Mortgage Broking · Diploma of Building & Construction (in progress) · Peter Elliott Architecture + Urban Design Prize

How We Work

Every project begins before the first sketch.

We start by understanding planning constraints, commercial objectives and the opportunities unique to the site. From there we coordinate consultants, manage approvals and develop documentation that can be carried confidently into construction.

Working with a limited number of clients each year allows us to remain closely involved throughout the process, preserving the original design intent while responding to the realities that inevitably emerge during delivery.

Architecture should not lose its clarity between concept and completion. Protecting that continuity is one of the practice's defining priorities.

Design in Use: Solaris Stays

Most architecture firms finish their involvement when construction ends. Ours doesn't.

Solaris Stays is a curated collection of homes designed, owned and hosted by the practice. Living with these projects over time provides something drawings never can: an ongoing understanding of how spaces perform once occupied.

Guest feedback, maintenance, seasonal change and everyday use become part of the design process. Every completed project informs the next.

For us, occupation is not the end of architecture. It is where architecture begins to prove itself.