Jamie Durie

Early life

Durie was born in Manly, an oceanside suburb in Sydney, to a Sri Lankan mother and Australian father. He spent most of his early childhood in the mining town of Tom Price in north Western Australia. Durie started modelling from an early age for brands such as Samsung and Coca-Cola and has been a surfer and involved in gymnastics from the age of 7 years. He continued his previous skill of gymnastics and modelling when he started touring with Manpower Australia. After a performance on the US Phil Donahue Show in New York, and multiple other US media Manpower Australia had incredible success both in Australia and abroad, landing a 7-year residency at The Stardust Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. His creative roles within the production, choreography, set design, lighting and pyrotechinics of the show led to his interest in the design and architecture industry. He then returned to Sydney to study design and horticulture in Sydney for four years at the age of 26. After launching his design business, PATIO on February 11th, 1998, Durie has received 38 International Design Awards since, including a Gold Medal and the prestigious, Chelsea Flower Show in London.

Television career

Durie has hosted and featured in over 52 prime-time lifestyle and journalism shows globally and appeared on television shows around the world. Beginning with the top-rating television show,Backyard Blitz, which Durie picked up a Logie Award for Best New Talent. He then went on to be the original host of ground-breaking show, The Block for the show's first two seasons. Other shows Durie has hosted or featured in include The Outdoor Room, Australia's Best Backyards, Torvil and Dean's Dancing on Ice, Disney on Ice, and Cirque Du Soleil Specials.

He has received seven Australian TV Logie awards including the Logie award for Most Popular New Male Talent and six consecutive Logie awards for hosting the Most Popular Australian Lifestyle Program for Backyard Blitz.

Durie appeared regularly on The Oprah Winfrey Show following his first appearance in November 2006. Durie appeared on a number of Winfrey's shows during his five-year contract to Harpo and publicly gives credit to Oprah for his USA career.

In the US, Durie's The Outdoor Room on HGTV has had four seasons. He has hosted nine independent shows on HGTV including HGTV Showdown, HGTV Dream Home, HGTV Green Home, The Rose Parade and hosted America's longest running gardening program on PBS, The Victory Garden. Durie has appeared in other programs in Australia and the USA including Dancing with the Stars, 60 Minutes, Celebrity Millionaire, The Price is Right, Better Homes and Gardens, Hard Copy, Entertainment Tonight, E news, NBC Today Show, Donahue, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, and was host and judge on the US series Top Design in Australia.

In Asia, Durie is host and presenter of The Apartment TV show of which the first four season's were produced for The Starworld Network. Season five, is premiering in March, 2017 and season six will go into production in Aug/September, 2017.

Books and online publishing

Durie is the author of 11 best-selling books: (in order of release) Patio—Garden Design and Inspiration, The Outdoor Room, Outside, The Source Book (Editions 1 and 2), Outdoor Kids, Inspired, Jamie Durie's The Outdoor Room and 100 Gardens', Edible Garden Design and recently released his first interior book, 'Living Design - How to bring the outside in - creating a Transterior home', co-authored with Nadine Bush. Living Design is due to be released in the States sometime in Spring 2018 by Harper Collins NY. Durie and his team produce and publish jamiedurie.com, jamieduriedesign.com and in January 2012 Durie released his own iPhone app, Garden Design With Jamie Durie. He is founder and Editorial Director of The Outdoor Room magazine.

Landscape design

After completing four years of study in horticulture and design, Durie founded the landscape design company Patio Landscape Architecture and Design in 1998. Patio was renamed Durie Design in 2010.

Durie has received 34 design awards. He has been invited to exhibit and compete at international garden shows and won gold medals in Australia, Singapore, Japan, New Zealand and the Chelsea Flower Show in the UK. He continues to focus on large-scale resort and hotel designs globally with designs in Australia, the US, Canada, Spain, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Dubai, Bahrain, Hong Kong and the Caribbean. His latest large scale resort project involved designing and rejuvenating the landscape, furniture, sculpture and gardens at Hayman Island and its private estates on Australia's Great Barrier Reef, after they were devastated by tropical cyclones Anthony and Yasi.

Furniture and product design

Over the years, Durie Design has had many accolades for interior furniture design which include an award received in December 2014 for the design of the Elle Ecrite Desk for Riva1920, and was followed by another for the Rainbow Modulare wall unit at the London Design Awards in May 2014. Durie was also awarded the New York Design Award for his interior dining chair titled, The Tubular Chair. The Bungalow Armchair in hand woven leather was also a finalist. Durie Design has evolved into a multidisciplinary design practice in ares of architecture, interior design, landscape and Durie's greatest passion, furniture design. In 2003, Durie designed and launched a range of outdoor furniture and gardening products under the brand name Patio by Jamie Durie. The range includes furniture, décor, gardening tools, lighting, textiles, BBQs, ornaments and accessories. All the timber products in the range are environmentally responsible FSC certified timber.

Durie designed the Jamie Durie Signature range of products in collaboration with other artists and designers, including a range of paints with Porters Paints, textiles with Cloth, Durie Design outdoor furniture range with David Knott, a studio design with Modern-Shed and a range of rugs with the Rug Collection.

After a successful launch into Europe, Durie's collections continue to sell today in many countries with his latest collections for renowned Milan-based Italian furniture manufacturer Riva 1920 launching at Salone del Mobile, Milan back in April 2013. Since then the collection has doubled with a new collection for Riva1920 to launch in Italy, April 2017. And other collaborations due for launch at the same time are notably with Unopiu and Natuzzi.

Environment and charity

Durie is an advocate for environmental conservation. He trained with former US Vice-President Al Gore as a Climate Change Presenter (now named Climate Reality), launched Clean up the World Day with the UN in New York, and is an Ambassador for Greenpeace, Australian Conservation Foundation, Planet Ark and National Tree Day. He also hosted the Australian Conservation Foundation's Spirituality and Sustainability Forum with the Dalai Lama, and is an ambassador and former board member of the Royal Botanic Gardens Foundation, Sydney. Durie is an ambassador for the Forest Stewardship Council and Earth Hour.

Humanitarian work

Durie has donated his time and resources to several charities, including Plan International, the Children's Cancer Institute, FSHD, Sydney Children's Hospital and the Children's Hospital at Westmead, the Variety Club, Rotary, the Children First Foundation, and Westmead Millennium Institute. He was executive producer and host of Jamie's Journey – Hope for Uganda's Children and Jamie's Journey with the Children of India, both produced in conjunction with Plan International to raise awareness of HIV Aids in Uganda and highlight the challenges and successes of Plan's early childhood care programs in India.

Personal

Durie's parents, Ron "Dave" and Joy (who was born in Sri Lanka), divorced when he was aged 10. He and his brother Chris moved to the Gold Coast, Queensland with their mother. Durie has a daughter, Taylor (born 1997), from a relationship with Michelle Gennock. He has since been engaged to Terasa Livingstone and Siobhan Way.