Folk Architects

Folk Architects is an award winning architecture practice established in 2011, by Christie Petsinis
and Tim Wilson following many years of collaboration and working for local and internationally
renowned practices. Folk’s philosophy is to create architecture and design that is inclusive,
accessible and engages with the community to create a built environment that reflects their values
and bestows a sense of civic pride and ownership.
Drawing upon their professional experiences, travel and post graduate study abroad, Folk’s oeuvre
is diverse in scale, program and complexity. Medhurst Winery, their first completed project received
a Victorian Commercial Award, a National Commendation and was shortlisted at the 2013 World
Architecture Awards. Subsequent completed projects have been recognised for their architectural
design excellence.
While both Christie and Tim are actively involved in all aspects of the practice, Christie’s focus is on
innovation, research, design, exploration of materiality and ongoing engagement with education, while Tim
leads project co-ordination, documentation and construction. This dynamic and complimentary working
partnership enables the studio to expand their architectural knowledge, research and strategic process that
continues to define the practice.
As architects and designers they are committed to developing a working method within the profession
that facilitates employing architectural intelligence at the early stages of a project. Assisting with the
development of client’s briefs and considering broader reaching factors helps to ensure that the delivery of
each individual project best captures the desires of its user groups.
Developing a process and methodology of working in collaboration with the broader project team
has lead to continued success. Post occupancy is another important consideration to all of their
projects - Folk consider evaluation and user feedback as integral to economic and sustainable
design initiatives that have a minimal environmental intervention and maximum benefits.
Folk believe that it is the role of design to respond to the entire social and environmental condition - their
approach is compassionate and they are technically engaged and empathetic to contemporary issues. Folk
Architects are committed to creating places that are social, cultural and sustainable beyond the physical
dimension of architecture.