About

The Studio

43NORTH was founded in September 2025, when two Northern Beaches studios — fortythree design studio and North by North — stopped being neighbours and became one practice. The name does the maths for you: 43, plus North. It's a merger that reads as obvious in hindsight, which is usually the sign of a good one — helped along by the fact that Stefan and Ruth had already crossed paths years earlier, on the boards at BVN, long before either studio existed.

Stefan Heim

Stefan cut his teeth at two prestigious Sydney practices: Harry Seidler & Associates and Durbach Block Jaggers. That background shows in his work — an insistence on purposeful geometry and materials that speak plainly. After a technical stint at BVN Architects, Stefan founded fortythree design studio in Manly, delivering diverse projects from a budget-disciplined family home in Curl Curl to a fusion energy research facility. His view is unfussy: architecture should speak for itself visually, conveying its principles simply through its form.

Ruth Kealy

Ruth brings the other half of the equation: two decades across education, workplace and residential design, underpinned by a Master's in Sustainability and a NSW architectural registration earned the long way. In 2020 she founded North by North, a Manly-based studio known for interiors, residential projects and hospitality. Her practice has always treated sustainability as a design constraint worth getting excited about, not a box to tick at the end.