Sophie Burke, Principal

Sophie Burke, Principal

 

About

Sophie Burke Design (SBD) is an award winning Vancouver based design practice known for its creativity, subtle sophistication and warmth. The focus of our work is private homes and select retail. 

Understated, elegant, and classic design combined with the raw beauty of the Pacific Northwest shape our designs and approach. We strive to design simple, timeless and beautiful spaces that are meaningful for the people who live in them. 

As a full service design firm we collaborate with the client to define the vision of each project, overseeing it from creative inception to project completion. Bringing design to life requires the trust, dedication and skills of our amazing community of partners. We proudly collaborate with leading architects, landscapers, builders, developers, furniture makers, skilled tradespeople and suppliers to achieve world class and award-winning results.

The firm’s work has been consistently featured in national and local magazines and on multiple design blogs. Sophie Burke Design won Western Living's Robert Ledingham Memorial Award in 2013. Canadian House and Home magazine said of Sophie: ‘The designer’s sophisticated, eclectic sensibility is spot-on’ and she has been labelled ‘Vancouver’s Design Darling’ by the same magazine.

PRINCIPAL: SOPHIE BURKE

Sophie grew up in a Vancouver home where design was always front and center. “My parents adored antiques and, from a young age, I remember tagging along to shops with them while they poked around looking for pieces to round out their eclectic collection,” she says. “Having a well designed home was important to them, and their enthusiasm and interest in design was infectious—even to a child.”

After finishing her undergraduate degree in BC, Sophie moved to London to study interior design and, upon graduation, landed a job with the legendary Terence Conran at Conran and Partners. “I was young, just out of design school and ready to soak it all up,” she recalls. Working on projects in London, Paris and Tokyo cemented her love for classic, contemporary elegance and provided the backdrop for her refined design sensibility. "I gained an appreciation of a broad range of design styles: I love the tension between old and new as well as high and low that exists there,” she says. “Seeing a beautiful, traditional building fitted out with contemporary finishes, furniture and lighting was transformative.” 

Once she returned to Vancouver, the designer launched Sophie Burke Design, which blends the aesthetic she honed while abroad with the singular beauty of the Pacific Northwest. Sophie and her team create a bespoke portfolio of work that seeks to define a new Pacific Northwest design ethos: interiors that take cues from nature—like deep colours and rugged textures—but dovetail with a global perspective.  

But there is never a one-size-fits-all formula. While Sophie’s design hews modern, her spaces always have multiple layers that speak to the character of the people who live in them. Design should always be functional and practical to meet the needs of the inhabitants, she believes, but it should also feel natural and easy. Each home should bear a unique personality that reveals the very essence of the people who reside in them.