At home with Deborah Berke
Architect Deborah Berke talks to us about art, collaboration, climate change and the future, from the living room of her Long Island home

Not only is architect Deborah Berke one of her field’s leading professionals and an instantly recognised name in worldwide design, she was also the subject of the very first architecture story in Wallpaper* – when the magazine launched in 1996. In similar fashion, we kick off the architectural element of our ‘At home with’ interview series by hearing from this renowned American, who shares with us insights, hopes, dreams and inspiration. Berke, who has worked as an architect since 1982, is now the head of her eponymous practice as well as the dean of the Yale School of Architecture – the first woman to ever hold this position. Her career has always blended teaching and practising, as well as art, luxury and minimalism, with key works including the Marianne Boesky Gallery and the interiors at 432 Park Avenue, both in New York City, the Irwin Union Bank in Columbus, and a wealth of private homes.
At home with Deborah Berke
Deborah Berke.
W*: Where are you at the moment? What can you see?
Deborah Berke: In the living room in my house on the eastern end of Long Island. From the couch where I often read, and sometimes sleep, I can see beautiful trees and starkly crisp bright blue sky. When I first envisioned this room while designing the house, I wanted to capture the long horizontal expanse of green and the everchanging edge it makes with the sky above. I continue to cherish that view.
W*: What’s the last thing you bought?
DB: I recently bought a small painting by the Trinidadian-American artist Allana Clarke. I absolutely love it. Allana was recently a fellow at NXTHVN, the artists’ residency and mentorship programme founded by Titus Kaphar, for which we designed the building. So that connection makes it even more meaningful to me.
NXTHVN Gallery
W*: Where and when do you find you are most productive?
DB: Early in the morning when the sun is bright and the sky is blue. I crave natural light and long views – they don’t have to be of anything beautiful or recognisable, they just have to have significant distance. I work best near a window on a big open surface, so I can arrange my digital devices and have paper and a variety of implements with which to draw.
W*: Favourite place, anywhere in the world? And why?
DB: I have endless favourite places, really anywhere I can take a long walk and discover something. I love leaving a hotel and finding streets, shops, restaurants, parks, buildings and activities that are new to me. When we design hotels, we always try and key into the local culture, to celebrate, elevate, and connect to it in a contemporary way.
NXTHVN Gallery.
W*: What’s the one thing (in your creative field) you wish you had designed or invented?
DB: A contemplative space, like a Quaker meeting house or a temple.
W*: Ten years from now you’ll be…
DB: I’ll still be an architect.
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.
W*: What are you reading, and what do you think of it?
DB: I read lots of things simultaneously on a broad range of subjects. Iwan Baan just gave me the new book he did with Frances Kéré. I admire both of their work so much. I’m also reading a novel by Shirley Hazzard, The Great Fire. I recently bought This is Where We Find Ourselves by Njaimeh Njie, which documents the displacement of the Black community in Pittsburgh. I’m also reading Capote’s Women by Laurence Leamer, which is gossipy and fun.
21c Museum Hotel Oklahoma City.
W*: What’s inspiring you right now?
DB: Fear for the planet. It’s hard for architects to have an impact on war or hunger or other global issues, but we have a big role to play in combatting the climate crisis. We do a lot of adaptive reuse projects, and we’ve recently been analysing the embodied carbon we’ve saved in some of our recent projects, and, honestly, the numbers are really incredible. So adaptive reuse is a very powerful tool in fighting climate change.
W*: How do you switch off? Do you switch off?
DB: I swim.
W*: Favourite material to work with and why?
DB: I like all materials, particularly natural materials. I just want them to be honest, and I love when they’re detailed in an interesting or unexpected way.
Art piece by Allana Clarke
W*: What one piece of advice would you give for the next generation?
DB: Stay engaged. Keep your eyes trained on the just future your generation is fighting for and work to build it.
W*: What’s been your biggest failure and what did it teach you?
DB: Architecture is always a bit of a highwire act, so I think there’s always a bit of fear of failure. I use that as motivation to be as rigorous as I can.
Long Island house.
W*: Who is your dream collaborator?
DB: We love working with artists, so working with Titus Kaphar on NXTHVN was a dream project. We hope to collaborate again. And I look forward to working with other artists on projects we can’t even imagine yet.
W*: If you weren’t an architect, what would you have been?
DB: An architect is all I ever wanted to be, so I can’t imagine anything else, in this life at least.
INFORMATION
Ellie Stathaki is the Architecture & Environment Director at Wallpaper*. She trained as an architect at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece and studied architectural history at the Bartlett in London. Now an established journalist, she has been a member of the Wallpaper* team since 2006, visiting buildings across the globe and interviewing leading architects such as Tadao Ando and Rem Koolhaas. Ellie has also taken part in judging panels, moderated events, curated shows and contributed in books, such as The Contemporary House (Thames & Hudson, 2018), Glenn Sestig Architecture Diary (2020) and House London (2022).
-
The great American museum boom
Nine of the world’s top ten most expensive, recently announced cultural projects are in the US. What is driving this investment, and is this statistic sustainable?
-
Here’s how Heathrow is reimagining airport chaos as ambient music
Grammy-nominated Jordan Rakei turns travel noise into a meditative soundtrack by sampling everything from baggage belts to jet engines
-
Wallpaper* checks into Gansevoort Meatpacking, an art-filled hotel that mirrors the district’s glow-up
This sharp, stylish New York hotel is a fixture in its neighbourhood, where boutiques, restaurants and clubs have long since taken over spaces once occupied by slaughterhouses
-
Peel back this Michigan lakeside house’s cool slate exterior to reveal a warm wooden home
In Detroit, Michigan, this lakeside house, a Y-shaped home by Disbrow Iannuzzi Architects, creates a soft balance between darkness and light through its minimalist materiality
-
Inside the new theatre at Jacob’s Pillow and its ‘magic box’, part of a pioneering complex designed for dance
Jacob’s Pillow welcomes the reborn Doris Duke Theatre by Mecanoo, a new space that has just opened in the beloved Berkshires cultural hub for the summer season
-
A Rancho Mirage home is in tune with its location and its architect-owners’ passions
Architect Steven Harris and his collaborator and husband, designer Lucien Rees Roberts, have built a home in Rancho Mirage, surrounded by some of America’s most iconic midcentury modern works; they invited us on a tour
-
Inside Frank Lloyd Wright’s Laurent House – a project built with accessibility at its heart
The dwelling, which you can visit in Illinois, is a classic example of Wright’s Usonian architecture, and was also built for a client with a disability long before accessibility was widely considered
-
Tour this fire-resilient minimalist weekend retreat in California
A minimalist weekend retreat was designed as a counterpoint to a San Francisco pied-à-terre; Edmonds + Lee Architects’ Amnesia House in Napa Valley is a place for making memories
-
A New Zealand house on a rugged beach exemplifies architect Tom Kundig's approach in rich, yet understated luxury
This coastal home, featured in 'Tom Kundig: Complete Houses', a new book launch in the autumn by Monacelli Press, is a perfect example of its author's approach to understated luxury. We spoke to Tom Kundig, the architect behind it
-
Tour architect Paul Schweikher’s house, a Chicago midcentury masterpiece
Now hidden in the Chicago suburbs, architect Paul Schweikher's former home and studio is an understated midcentury masterpiece; we explore it, revisiting a story from the Wallpaper* archives, first published in April 2009
-
The world of Bart Prince, where architecture is born from the inside out
For the Albuquerque architect Bart Prince, function trumps form, and all building starts from the inside out; we revisit a profile from the Wallpaper* archive, first published in April 2009