CIVILIAN is a design studio based in New York, founded and led by the pair who joined us for a live interview when they were in Australia in 2024.
February 14th, 2025
CIVILIAN is a design studio based in New York, founded and led by the pair who joined us for a live interview when they were in Australia in 2024. Ksenia Kagner and Nicko Elliott are the duo behind CIVILIAN, and they have been working with Bankston Architectural on a range of highly refined hardware pieces. Bankston Architectural is part of Southern Design Group, led by co-CEOS Emily and Steve Bradley.
In this episode, we spoke all about this collaboration as well as their visit to the country and impressions of Australian design. Nicko and Ksenia shared their thoughts on some of the similarities and differences between design practice in Australia and the US
Listen to the CIVILIAN episode here!


Learn more about Stories Indesign here, and keep an eye out for new episodes – remember to subscribe and review!
Check out the Hassan Hajjaj episode next


INDESIGN is on instagram
Follow @indesignlive
A searchable and comprehensive guide for specifying leading products and their suppliers
Keep up to date with the latest and greatest from our industry BFF's!
In the first instalment of our three-part series exploring what it means to sit your best, we pose the question to Gray Puksand’s Dale O’Brien, who discusses the importance of ease and majority rule when it comes to sitting and reveals why specifying a task chair is not unlike choosing a Volvo.
In the last instalment of our three-part performance seating series, Alex Bain from Architectus explains why sitting well shouldn’t feel like sitting at all and explores an unexpected success metric of the hybrid workplace: the grounding power of emotional support.
The Geelong College’s Sport and Wellbeing Centre ‘Belerren’ designed by Wardle is designed around bringing in natural light. But Shade Factor’s job was to help modulate and precisely control it for the most important competitive moments.
Explore the full lineup of shortlisted people, projects and products!
SJB transforms former railway land into a 702-home build-to-rent community, using housing, public space and shared amenities to reconnect one of Melbourne’s busiest transport precincts.
The internet never sleeps! Here's the stuff you might have missed
Celebrating three countries from our region and their respective Architecture Institutes at the 2026 INDE.Awards.
Returning to Melbourne this month, Australia’s official Passivhaus conference THRIVE turns its attention to the commercial case for high-performance building.