Before There Were Clients, There Were Bricks
Long before I had clients, I was designing — initially in miniature worlds, later translating that same spatial intuition to full-scale homes.
Design began in childhood, long before I had the language to describe it. I was endlessly absorbed in making things: sketching floor plans, building suspension bridges, assembling LEGO cars and boats. But it was architecture that truly captured me. I was drawn to the great stately homes of England and the châteaux of France — their symmetry, order, and grandeur — and I recreated them obsessively in miniature form.
Lego Chateau
LEGO wasn’t about following instructions. It was about building entire worlds. I’d fall into deep focus, losing all sense of time — forgetting to eat, speak, or even move. In those moments, I wasn’t just playing; I was designing, exercising an intuitive understanding of space, structure, and proportion.
A few years ago, I revisited that same intense focus. I built a LEGO chateau — not a modest house, but a vast, intricate residence inspired by 18th-century architecture. I sketched a rough layout beforehand, but the build took on a life of its own.
The result was a sixty-plus-room chateau: entrance hall, great hall, drawing room, study, salon, dining room, library, and a suite of state rooms. There was a full service wing, a boathouse, five staircases, and a central staircase worthy of a museum. Every space had a purpose, guided by an internal logic I understood intuitively, even if I couldn’t fully articulate it.
Lego Chateau
This wasn’t my first LEGO project — far from it — but it was the first time I recognised what I was doing for what it truly was: a raw, unfiltered expression of my design thinking. Intuitive. Visual. Structural. Analytical.
Today, when I design real homes — kitchens, interiors, built-in furniture — I draw on that same instinct. That early focus on spatial rhythm, functional logic, and emotional flow underpins everything I do. It’s what allows me to create spaces that don’t just look good, but feel deeply right.
Looking back, that chateau wasn’t just a model — it was a blueprint for my approach to design: seeing possibilities before they exist, thinking in layers, and trusting intuition alongside technical knowledge. A reminder that design doesn’t always begin with a plan. Sometimes, it begins with a pile of bricks, a mind full of ideas, and a way of seeing the world that’s a little different — but profoundly your own.