#428 - GEORGINA WILSON, Founder & Principal of Georgina Wilson Associates
SUMMARY
This week David and Marina of FAME Architecture & Design Georgina Wilson, Founder and Principal of Georgina Wilson Associates. The three discussed Georgina’s childhood and education; her early career and the start of the architecture firm; why she started her own office; the ‘Ask an Architect’ social media; reoccurring issues in floor plan design; educating the public about good design; Architects connecting and communicating with the general public; and more. Enjoy!
ABOUT GEORGINA
Georgina Wilson is the founder and principal of Georgina Wilson Associates, bringing with her over 20 years’ of experience designing award-winning homes and commercial spaces. As the creative director and principal architect Georgina’s designs offer both beauty and practicality, with each project facilitated by her talented team, under her expert instruction.
Georgina takes great pride in translating the all-important client/designer conversation into spaces and structures that are illustrative of the way each of her clients want to uniquely live, work, and play.
Having won a number of prestigious architecture design awards as well as acting as a judge for architecture and design awards programs, Georgina’s reputation is highly regarded by peers and happy clients alike.
TIMESTAMPS
(00:00) Georgina's early childhood & education.
(13:39) Georgina's architecture education experience.
(25:38) Why Georgina started her office.
(30:12) When the office gained traction.
(36:09) ‘Ask an Architect’ Social Media.
“With so many houses being built without the benefit of good design advice, I feel like it’s a waste of money and resources. I guess that's where it [Ask an Architect] started. I also witnessed most of my architecture colleagues scrambling to serve the top 0.1% of the population. It’s all about, “Oh, I'm working on a $30 million build.” And that's regarded as successful. So, I see the whole architecture industry scrambling to service that 1%, but what I'm interested in is servicing the rest of the population. There are a lot of people who are looking to build but they can’t hire architects.” (41:15)
(45:06) How ‘Ask an Architect’ Works.
(50:34) Architects who don't know how to design floor plans.
(52:37) Reoccurring Issues in Floor Plans.
“A configuration of an ensuite and a walk-in wardrobe, but neither of the spaces work as they're meant to. For example, the bathroom is too small to be functional. The walk-in wardrobe gives you less storage than a cupboard and the bedroom is compromised as a result. Yet someone is walking around and stamping these plans with this same pattern. The walk-in wardrobe that’s meant to be a demonstration of luxury, I don't understand that.” (53:00)
(57:03) Workload of ‘Ask an Architect’.
(01:05:21) Educating the public about good design.
(01:13:02) Architects communicating to the public about good design.
“I've noticed there seems to be quite a lot of negativities towards architects generally around my [social media] account, and I was just asking people, why is that? It's interesting to get thousands of responses to that question. A lot of architects are awkward, maybe it's because they're shy, but there were a lot of comments about how architects don't communicate well. I know it's a very challenging thing to be able to communicate effectively in that architect-client relationship, even for people who love to talk. That was just a massive theme that came through from the ‘normies’.” (01:16:24)
“A lot of architects think it's important to impress their peers because that's how they win the awards, and that's how they perceive that they're going to move up that value ladder. But it creates a whole culture of architects talking with architect language and just not being very relatable to ordinary people who ultimately are the ones that want their homes built. I mean, there are different types of architects, so maybe they work in commercial spaces and that might be completely different. But in residential design, I think it's very important to be able to communicate with normal people.” (01:18:32)
(01:21:29) Georgina's favorite building.
