It’s no secret that certain projects become more than just jobs. Some projects turn into pivotal moments and defining experiences that can shift the direction of your career, clarify your purpose, and open doors you didn’t even know existed. For Racheal Gowdridge, Cigal Kaplan, and Nicky Dobree, there is one transformative project in each of their careers that stands out as the turning point that changed everything.

Rachael Gowdridge

Rachael Gowdridge’s defining moment came early in her solo career, following years of working within the fast-paced hospitality sector. “One of my first residential projects after setting up my studio was a Georgian townhouse in Clerkenwell,” she says. “I worked closely with the client to shape a space that truly reflected her lifestyle and values.”

This project marked a dramatic shift from the demands of more impersonal, commercial interior design work in the hospitality sector. “Coming from a background in hospitality, where commercial pressures often take the lead, this project gave me the freedom to slow down, collaborate with skilled artisans, and focus on quality and craft,” says Gowdridge.

The Clerkenwell townhouse was more than just a beautiful commission, though. It became the framework for Gowdridge’s design ethos. “It helped set the tone for the studio’s ethos – creating thoughtful, enduring spaces with a human touch

“Despite this,” Clarke says, “ it certainly is a week where the industry can reconnect and highlight the importance of community. I think the week left a lot of us feeling the same – a mix of concern and overwhelm, and a desire for future editions to recentre back onto purpose-driven design that leaves you feeling optimistic and hopeful.”

Cigal Kaplan

For Cigal Kaplan, the project that changed everything began with a cry for help from a client during a hugely uncertain time. “At the very start of the COVID pandemic, I received a message from a client who was feeling overwhelmed,” Kaplan says. “She and her husband had just started renovations in their home in St John’s Wood. Builders were already on site, and then the world changed.”

Initially tasked with just two rooms, the husband’s office and the wife’s music room, the scope of work grew quickly. “Over time, I helped them transform their entire home, including the master bedroom, living room, kitchen, children’s bedrooms and hallway,” Kaplan says.

The full-scale renovation was a rewarding challenge for Kaplan’s studio, but its impact extended far beyond the interior design brief. “What made this project truly pivotal wasn’t just the design itself but the ripple effect it had on my career,” says Kaplan. Her client, a well-connected member of NW8’s tight-knit community of mothers, began recommending Kaplan. “That one relationship opened doors throughout London and became a major turning point for Cigal Kaplan Interiors.”

“Looking back,” Kaplan says, “this project was far more than a design job. It was a leap of faith taken together in uncertain times, and it changed everything.”

Nicky Dobree

Nicky Dobree’s career-altering moment arrived unexpectedly with an international spotlight, a camera crew, and one of the design and architecture world’s best-known TV presenters, Kevin McCloud. “It is often difficult to pick out a moment or an experience that changed the direction of one’s career,” she says. “But perhaps the most high-profile was when my husband thrust me into the international limelight and announced that I was to be filmed whilst building our family home in the Alps for the first and last series of Grand Designs Abroad.”

In 2001, just two years after Dobree had left Taylor Howes to establish her own studio, this opportunity presented her with an out, “to break away from the cookie-cutter design of the time.” She saw this as a moment to introduce people to “a new chalet aesthetic” described on the show as the “ultimate James Bond pad.’”

With the growing popularity of skiing and international property investment, Dobree’s project tapped into the surge in demand for luxury living. “Grand Designs Abroad was made before the digital age and was licensed globally, accumulating millions of views,” she says. “As a result, a new dawn in the aesthetic of luxury chalets was born, as was the demand for my Alpine services.”

Since then, her studio has designed over 50 chalets, setting the gold standard in Alpine interiors. That singular broadcast project not only defined Dobree’s career trajectory but it reshaped an entire interior design category.