Interior Designer of the Year 2024: Sophie Burke

It was likely inevitable that Vancouverite Sophie Burke would one day become an interior designer. Her parents were not only avid gardeners who regularly pressed their children into green-thumb service in the family’s English garden, they were also passionate antique hunters with a penchant for wrangling Sophie and her five siblings into every antique store they came upon. “My parents were really creative and really interested in design,” explains our 2024 Western Living Interior Designer of the Year. “Together, they were creating an aesthetic.” And young Sophie was happily along for the ride.

So it wasn’t a surprise that, when Burke was choosing her post-secondary schooling, Britain’s KLC School of Design was top of the list. “My parents’ aesthetic was more traditional, but it gave me an appreciation for first putting an aesthetic together,” she says. Across the pond, she then fell in love with the Brits’ effortless ability to mix modern and traditional fare. “While living in Islington, I was introduced to Scandinavian design at a great store up the road that featured lots of classic Danish pieces interspersed with antiques—I’d always pop in and wander around,” she says.

Beyond school, London also offered ready access to design meccas like Habitat—the shop founded by British design icon Terence Conran—or modern furniture retailer Twenty­twentyone. “My eye started opening up to what else was out there apart from what I grew up with,” she says. Upon graduation, she landed a coveted job with Conran himself, where she continued to hone her aesthetic around Conran and Partners’ contemporary ethos—one Burke calls “timeless and never trendy.” Her designs for the firm leaned into classic modern furniture pieces that would resonate down the road rather than date themselves.

And while today the repertoire of Sophie Burke Design skews contemporary, there’s always a classic throughline that grounds each space, ensuring they never feel overtly on-trend, formulaic or cold. Whether it’s a coastal cabin, a mountain retreat or a city home, her spaces are rooted in their specific place, with layers of rugged texture, natural materials and deep colour that work in concert with calm, clean backdrops to create a unique Pacific Northwest vernacular that’s singularly hers.

Take her Halfmoon Bay project—a renovation of a 1980s house—where intentional moments abound. A raised marble hearth, a nubby living room rug and the primary bath marble surround, all in forest green hues, aim to channel the outdoors. When set against a shell of clean white oak floors, cream handmade Heath tiles and crisp white walls, the coastal leitmotif anchors the intimate abode with dramatic moodiness.

“Sophie’s interiors are always consistently thoughtful, beautiful and have a strong sensibility,” says judge and interior designer Michelle Biggar of Vancouver’s McFarlane Biggar. “Her work is never overdesigned yet every element and detail is fully considered, well detailed and harmonious with the overall design.”

In her Highland Hill project, a blank slate was inspired by the idea of a Belgian farmhouse. “New builds can be challenging because you never want them to look devoid of interest or without the layers that an old house can bring,” explains Burke. Inside, geometry and contrast reign supreme: diminutive black sconces flank a large white sculptural chimney hood while a dark stained oak kitchen backsplash contrasts with white cabinetry; a weighty custom coffee table by Vancouver’s Barter Design holds its own spatially against the scale of the home’s architecture. “The table is a natural material so it has character and will eventually patina—cracks might form over time, too, but we embrace all that,” explains Burke.

On a bluff facing the Salish Sea, her Island Ranch project is another masterclass in creating time-worn interiors. While the low-slung ode to indoor/outdoor living was built from scratch, its envelope is clad in rough-sawn cedar artfully stained in weathered grey to recall a pioneering homestead. Clothes hang on wall pegs in lieu of closets; an outdoor galvanized metal bathtub extends the rugged living space; cozy sheepskin throws and textured linen pillows hark to a simpler time. Modern organic elements serve as equally masterful design strokes in this nomadic escape, like a hanging ceiling speaker clad in fir and a wood coffee table by Barter that’s actually a subwoofer.

To the designer herself, part of the allure of each space is that her clients all bring a little something different to the table. “They come with their own set of ideas that drive the project,” says Burke. “We don’t want every space to look the same, so when an owner wants something a little more California, for example, or an Australian beach vibe, that’s what makes it interesting and fun for us.”

For the Modern Farmhouse project in North Vancouver’s Edgemont Village, three different chairs in the living room highlight Burke’s eclectic prowess. “It’s more interesting when you can find pieces that don’t match but can still work together to start to create a bit of a story,” says Burke. A vintage club chair from 1st Dibs and an iconic CH25 chair from Carl Hansen face a classic custom upholstered wingback chair. “There’s this tension between antiques and new pieces where you can’t pin the look to one period of time,” she explains.

Whether it’s a vast new build or a compact heritage house, a Sophie Burke space feels sophisticated, clean and always intimate and welcoming. Judge and interior designer Juli Hodgson summed it up succinctly: “Sophie Burke makes houses that people want to live in.” We couldn’t agree more.

 

Q&A with Sophie Burke

What was your first design project?

I worked on a restaurant called Itsu in London right after I graduated from design school there.

Who’s a Western Canadian designer whose work you admire?

I really admire Janaki Larsen’s work as a potter. I love how what she makes seems so rooted in the natural world. I drive by her studio on my way to work each day and I love looking in the window to see the beautifully curated displays of her work mixed with sculptural elements like branches or tumbleweed. It’s a creative inspiration .

What’s your go-to material of choice?

Anything natural—ash, oak, stone, plaster, linen, wool. I like things that aren’t always perfect and that can change over time. I like seeing knots in wood, slubs in linen, fossils in stone. These are the things that make them interesting to me.

What books are on your nightstand right now?

The Postcard by Anne Berest, Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason and Being Peace by Thich Nhat Hanh—that one lives on there.

What’s on your playlist these days?

I’ve been listening to Sturgill Simpson’s new Johnny Blue Skies album, Passage du Desir, on repeat.

READ MORE: Meet Western Living’s Designers to Watch in 2024