Jesse Hayes. Founder of Eclat Coworking Melbourne. Director. Creator. Designer. Systems Architect

Creating brands, environments, systems and companies that elevate how people live, work and connect. Melbourne, Australia.

Over the past decade I conceived and built ECLAT coworking, Melbourne's first hospitality-infused luxury serviced office brand; from a single word acquired in 2011; to the award-winning ECLAT Hawthorn East, now expanding across multiple sites in the Melbourne CBD. I am proud to have authored every layer: the brand and creative direction, the business architecture and enterprise technology, the ECLAT App and digital ecosystem, the interiors designed with FORME, the property strategy and the delivery of the fit out itself, governed as a Director since incorporation.

One founding principle runs through it all: the environments we inhabit should elevate the way we live, work and connect. Not as spectacle, as a standard. This website is the documented record of my work and my authorship: my portfolio, professional resume and work output across design, systems, technology, brand and development.

Jesse Hayes. Founder of Eclat Coworking Melbourne. Director. Creator. Designer. Systems Architect

Creating brands, environments, systems and companies that elevate how people live, work and connect. Melbourne, Australia.

Over the past decade I conceived and built ECLAT, Melbourne's first hospitality-infused luxury coworking and serviced office brand; from a single word acquired in 2011 to the award-winning ECLAT Hawthorn East, expanding across multiple sites in Melbourne CBD and beyond. I am proud to have authored every layer and asset of the business: from the brand and creative direction, the business architecture and enterprise technology, the ECLAT App and digital ecosystem, the interiors designed with FORME, the property strategy; to the delivery of the fit out, governed as a lawful Director.

One founding principle runs through it all: the environments we inhabit should elevate the way we live, work and connect. Not as spectacle, as a standard. This website is the documented record of my work: my portfolio, professional resume and authorship across design, systems, technology, brand and development.

WHAT I DO
& HOW I DO IT

Shaped by curiosity, systems thinking and the conviction that imagination is only as valuable as the discipline required to realise it. I understand meaningful outcomes as the product of purpose, process and genuine care, where considered decisions at every stage influence the whole. Detail, efficiency and experience compound over time. Ideas developed with continuity are resolved with intent and understood in context rather than in isolation.

Everything I do begins with some simple questions: why should this exist, why does it matter, and why should it be done well? This becomes a compass, for every decision, every action, every investment of effort. I aspire to create work that genuinely benefits people, and to develop ideas that generate opportunity, excitement and lasting value. The sections that follow reflect the core disciplines, capabilities and body of work that have shaped my career.

Before creating ECLAT I invested a decade across Microsoft Game Studios, Nintendo of America and Rockstar Games, live event production in Las Vegas, and four years in the Australian Army. Digital worldbuilding, quality assurance, environmental capture, hospitality orchestration and military service; layers of capability and experience every discipline was built on.
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ECLAT was founded in 2014, Melbourne's premier hospitality-infused luxury coworking brand. I acquired the eclat.com domain in 2011 while serving in the Australian Army, then opened ECLAT CREATIVE as a sole trader in Williamstown in 2013. I spent the next decade pushing the dream up the entrepreneurial hill, developing the proposition that became ECLAT Hawthorn East. Coworking built on branded hospitality, elevated interior design and seamless technology. The founding catalyst was a single phrase: "to be brilliant."
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As Creative Director of ECLAT coworking Melbourne, I authored, directed and protected the ECLAT brand from first word to the built environment. Identity, narrative, digital, campaign, soul, intent and experience. Creating the design system and the substance of ECLAT and its family of brands: Bureau, Parlor, Galerie, Noted and Forme. One language across every expression: restrained luxury, materiality and human experience, realised in full at ECLAT Hawthorn East.
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The ECLAT operating logic was enabled by Nexudus, the CRM platform behind ECLAT coworking Melbourne. Upon this foundation, my creative and digital partners developed an entirely bespoke deployment of branded apps and systems to enable the company to scale and achieve seamless hospitality operations. The result was a digital experience as a branded touchpoint, a working model of the business itself, from first enquiry to each cup of coffee.
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As CTO of ECLAT, I led the architecture and technology deployment existing behind the premium Melbourne workspace: enterprise networking, VLANs and redundancy, server and cloud environments, Salto access control, CCTV, AV integration and device fleets, infrastructure engineered so members never have to notice it, reliable, powerful, futureproofed and flexible. In luxury coworking, when technology fails, the experience fails with it.
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My incredible digital partners and I developed the innovative ECLAT digital ecosystem, a bespoke suite of technologies, including the award-winning ECLAT App, ECLAT Dashboard, ECLAT Order API and web platforms, recognized by multiple Australian and International design awards, including the Good Design Awards, Better Future Melbourne and the World Design Awards. Digital products designed as native extensions of the ECLAT brand, not bolted-on software.
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Leading the interior design process of ECLAT was a tireless pursuit to create an all encompassing design language, represented by ECLAT Hawthorn East. 1,970 sqm of soft luxury, built on precision, materiality and intent rather than excess. Through FORME DESIGN, the furniture and design studio co-founded with Mark Miller, every desk, surface and joinery detail was authored specifically for ECLAT, recognized at the Australian Interior Design Awards, ADR IDEA Awards, Melbourne Design Awards, Good Design Awards & The Local Project.
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Between 2016 and 2018 I led and directed the Creative Quarter proposal, an urban planning proposition for the Footscray CBD, prepared and presented in consultation with Maribyrnong City Council. It championed a new public auditorium, a contemporary library, green spaces and integrated commerce: a living, breathing hive of activity at Footscray's civic heart. A decade on, the same land, the same structures and the same language would come to define the council's Creative West precinct.
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From market research and strategic site identification to fully resolved and branded industry leading EOI proposals, financial feasibility, risk assessment and fit out delivery. I led the commercial property strategy that brought ECLAT to Hawthorn East, integrated in parallel with the interior, spatial, creative, technological and operational elements of the business. My list of authored EOI submissions include Hawthorn East, South Melbourne, Prahran, Cremorne, as well as multiple ECLAT Melbourne CBD locations; Bourke and Collins Street.
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My project-management scope outlined the delivery of ECLAT Hawthorn East, end to end: program, consultant appointments, and leadership across every deliverable. Within the business I was the sole point of leadership and delivery across brand, creative, design, operations and technology through tireless orchestration. I am proud of defending quality control from persistent challenges, and held the standard across every element, each discipline brought together as one brilliant endeavour.
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Holding office as the founding Director of ECLAT since incorporating my sole trading business ECLAT Creative. I have carried governance as a devout responsibility. Seeking to uphold lawful behavior, legal & regulatory compliance, accountability, transparency, stewardship, reducing risk and championing logical, market reactive long-term planning, in service of one ambition: to build an ethical, institution that deserves its success; protecting the ethics and principals that my brand claims to represent.

UPCOMING ENDEAVOURS & BRILLIANT PARTNERSHIPS

PIETRANERA

While the Visconti lineage grinds down the land and its people, a merchant's son climbs a ridge above an alpine corridor and begins to build. To honor his father's vision, he must outmaneuver bishops, lords, rivals, love, hope, betrayal & conflict, waging everything and everyone on the one thing that does not move. The black stone, of Pietranera.

AMIDST

A new format of escape, rewriting and disrupting an industry, and how we access memorable experiences & iconic destinations. Somewhere out there in the beautiful landscapes, in the wilderness, the land itself is incubating change. Places where people come together, work together, and build together. Where will you find yourself Amidst?

DONE TALKING

A not-for-profit advocacy platform for workplace rights: standing with people through workplace injury, unfair treatment, bullying and abuse. Calling for long overdue reforms to systems of safety, prevention, justice, accountability and compensation. Lobbying for urgent and impactful change. Those suffering are Done Talking.