David Stark Wilson, Architect

David Wilson was born in Berkeley, California, in 1961. Growing up in the university town of Berkeley, Wilson gained an early appreciation for the diverse architecture of the San Francisco Bay Area.

In 1984 Wilson received a degree in mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley. While studying there, he began the furniture and building projects that inspired his pursuit of architecture and led to his founding of the firm WA Design in 1985. His early work was strongly influenced by the early twentieth-century shingle style architect Bernard Maybeck. Wilson’s work has matured into a regional modernist architecture that shows influences of Maybeck and Neutra.

Wilson’s most valued early experiences were rooted in hiking and climbing the mountains and cliffs of the Sierra Nevada. Incorporating his outdoor influences, his approach to design emphasizes the interrelationship of building and site. Ordering principles for a project borrow from their context and often metaphorically relate to the natural landscape.

David Wilson’s interest in architecture and photography converged during his backroad encounters with the austere agricultural buildings and landscape of California’s Central Valley. In June 2003 his first book, Structures of Utility, was published. In July 2008 his second book, Above All, a photo essay on California’s highest peaks, was published by Heyday. Articles on Wilson’s architecture and WA Design have been featured in numerous publications, including Metropolitan Home, Residential Architect, and California Home and Design. The Norfolk House was recently selected for inclusion in Russell Abraham’s California Cool: Residential Modernism Reborn (Images Publishing, 2010).

Wilson and his wife, Stacia Cronin, live in Berkeley with their two children, Chase and Kai.