Sonia van de Haar is an artist and colour designer with 20 years’ experience working in the built environment. With a background in painting and architecture, and a passion for connecting people and place, Sonia works to bring intelligent and stimulating colour and artworks into the spaces where people live, work and thrive. She speaks and teaches on architectural colour design. Sonia was born in Wollongong and studied painting at the School of Art and Design, ANU, and architecture at the University of NSW. She has studied fresco painting at the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, India.

"I came to architecture through painting, and after studying fresco painting in India. During my early years as a graduate architect I became aware of a lack of colour knowledge in the discipline of Architecture. In my design practice, Lymesmith, I work to develop meaning and resonance between site and structure, and people and their environments through my understanding of colour as a material in the built environment. This approach applies at both the scale of the city, and at the scale of the private house.

Each Lymesmith project has developed in response to its particular conditions and context. I have no absolute manifesto with regards to architectural polychromy. I aim to understand the architecture and the site, and with a painters eye, bring them into a harmony that exceeds the sum of parts."

Jeanie joined Lymesmith after working as an architect for 18 years. She has always been drawn to colour, believing deeply in its transformative power to shape how we experience the world around us. She is passionate about understanding how colour design can foster our well-being by creating quality, meaningful, and sustainable spaces that enrich everyday life.

Originally from Taipei, Jeanie earned her architecture degree and postgraduate qualifications from The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. She began her career in London in the mid-2000s, gaining diverse experience across community and children's centres, schools, social housing, mixed-use, and retail fit-out projects. She later brought this breadth of experience to Sydney, working for over 14 years at Molnar Architects, where she contributed to delivering high-end residential projects on often uniquely constrained sites.

Outside of practice, Jeanie enjoys painting and pattern design; she appreciates hand-crafted objects, interesting textures, and well-considered details.