Dundee Design
"At the V&A Dundee, exhibition designer Fiona creates experiences that transform visitors. When architect James collaborates on a show, she transforms him too."
The V&A Dundee rose from the waterfront like sculpture given purpose—Kengo Kuma's masterpiece, Scotland's first design museum, and my professional home for five years. I created exhibitions that made people see differently.
"The Mackintosh show needs rethinking."
The architect across the meeting table was James Morton—famous for buildings that respected their predecessors, controversial for opinions about how museums used design. We'd been arguing for an hour.
"Rethinking how?"
"The current plan treats Mackintosh like a historical figure. He was a living practice—someone who thought spaces could transform people." James leaned forward. "We need to make visitors feel transformed, not educated."
"That's easy to say. Harder to achieve."
"Then let's achieve it together."
The collaboration was combative, productive, exactly what good creative work required. James pushed; I pushed back. He demanded impossible things; I found ways to make them possible. Somewhere in the process, the professional tension became something else.
"Why do you care so much?" I asked one evening. We'd moved from the museum to a pub nearby, still arguing about sightlines.
"Because Mackintosh understood what I've spent my career trying to prove—that design isn't decoration. It's experience. It changes how people feel, how they think, how they live."
"And you think I don't understand that?"
"I think you understand it completely. That's why I keep arguing." He smiled. "You're the first exhibition designer who's actually challenged me."
"Most architects don't welcome challenge."
"Most architects are insecure. I'm secure enough to want someone who makes my work better." His hand found mine. "Fiona. This collaboration has been the most exciting professional experience I've had in years. I don't want it to stay professional."
"That's complicated."
"Design is complicated. We solve complicated for a living."
The kiss happened on the waterfront, Kuma's building watching like interested witness. His mouth was decisive, exactly like his architecture—bold lines, clear intent, space created through intention.
"My flat's in the building opposite," I said.
"Of course it is."
The flat was design showcase—every piece chosen, every space considered. James looked around with professional appreciation.
"You live your work."
"I don't separate them. Can't, really." I poured wine. "Design isn't what I do—it's how I see."
"I know exactly what you mean." He pulled me close. "That's why this feels right. We see the same way."
We made love with the V&A visible through my windows, its curves and angles reflecting in the Tay. James touched me with architect's intention—understanding structure, finding where support was needed, building toward something complete.
"You're beautiful," he said.
"I'm designed for function, not fashion."
"The best design is both." He moved inside me with considered rhythm. "Form follows function. You're perfect."
We came together while the city slept, his building watching, my work waiting. When I gasped his name, it was with the same satisfaction I felt when an exhibition finally came together—completion, rightness, the joy of something working.
"Stay," I said afterward.
"In Dundee?"
"In my design. In my life." I pulled him closer. "We work well together. Why limit it to professional?"
The Mackintosh show was a triumph—critics called it "transformative," exactly what we'd intended. James stayed for the opening, then the week after, then started finding reasons to work from Dundee more often.
"We should make this official," he said one night.
"The collaboration?"
"All of it. The collaboration, the relationship, the life we're building together." He kissed my forehead. "I've designed buildings all over the world. None of them feel like home the way this does."
"Home isn't a building."
"Home is the person who makes the space meaningful." He pulled me closer. "You do that. You make everything meaningful."
The V&A still rises from the waterfront. I still create exhibitions that transform visitors. And now there's an architect in my flat who transforms spaces while I transform the people who move through them.
That's what design really means—not just objects or buildings but relationships. The spaces between people, carefully considered, deliberately constructed. James understood that from the beginning. It just took a Mackintosh show to make us both admit what we were actually building.