every place holds untapped potential
Some of it is obvious. Most of it requires curiosity, experience and a willingness to look beyond what exists today.
MAEVE was founded by Emma Ridings - a registered architect with two decades of experience across architecture, development and placemaking - to bring together strategic thinking, design leadership and a deep curiosity about place.
We work with developers, landowners, organisations, communities and private clients to uncover potential, shape visions and deliver places people choose.
This is a studio built on the belief that good design matters. But understanding why a place should exist matters more.
A strategy, a masterplan, a building, a precinct vision or a community framework — whatever form it takes, our work begins in the same place. With curiosity, rigour, and a clear understanding of the people, community and commercial reality behind it.
The scale of the project may change. The question remains the same.
What could this become?
MAEVE is a collective of people who shape places through strategic thinking and design leadership.
Places matter because people do.
Emma has spent two decades working across cultural institutions, mixed-use precincts, city-shaping developments and community infrastructure — and across every scale, one thing has remained consistent. The most successful places create value because they create connection.
She founded MAEVE to work at the intersection of design, strategy and placemaking. Not as an architect who happens to understand development. As a place strategist who uses architecture to create value — whether that's commercial performance for a developer, belonging for a community, or renewal for a city.
Registered in Queensland and New South Wales, Emma brings together two decades of experience with a genuine curiosity about what places can become. She leads MAEVE with the belief that understanding why a place should exist matters as much as how it's designed.
She is also deeply committed to the people who make the work — mentoring emerging designers to ask brave questions, explore ideas and grow their craft with confidence. That belief shapes how MAEVE operates: a studio where different perspectives, disciplines and backgrounds are genuinely valued, because better thinking comes from diverse minds focused on the same outcome.
emma ridings
Good design only exists if it can be built. Val is the person at MAEVE who makes sure it can.
With formal training in both Fine Art and Architecture, she brings a distinctive combination to the technical world of BIM and documentation — analytical precision and an artist's eye for nuance. Over a decade of experience across large-scale multi-residential, commercial and infrastructure projects has given her a deep understanding of how complex buildings come together.
As MAEVE's delivery lead, Val transforms design intent into coordinated, buildable solutions — bridging creativity and constructability with the same care and intention with which every project was conceived. She believes the integrity of a project lives in its details, and that belief runs through everything MAEVE delivers.
valeriia kopeva
Careers
We are always on the look out for a range of talented and enthusiastic individuals to join our team. Please send us your portfolio and a little bit about yourself to hello@maevecollective.com.au
For details on future vacancies, keep an eye out on this page and follow us on Instagram and Linkedin.