Award-winning architect with over 24-years of experience.
Giesen Architecture is focused on creating sustainable solutions through refined simplicity in design and client collaboration.
William Giesen works with a select group of skilled designers, consultants and builders who combine experience with well-established design principles.
“We deliver sustainable architecture while making the regulatory and costing process seamless. We work from concept through to detailed design and construction to building completion.”
William’s work as part of Bonnifait + Giesen has won multiple architectural awards and been recognised through numerous publications, both nationally and internationally.
William was the Co-founder, Director and sole Architect of Bonnifait + Giesen for more than 20-years. He’s worked on a broad range of projects from commercial, multi-residential, industrial to educational and heritage building redevelopments throughout New Zealand Aotearoa.
Bourdeaux Quays Competition Project, France
Beginnings
In his early childhood, William’s parents hired a young, John Scott, to design a new family farmhouse in rural Hawkes Bay. Their family of five moved from their small farm cottage into a modernist, purpose-built, architecturally designed home.
“During the design process I remember a discussion about which brown to paint the roof. The house had a number separate gables. John suggested painting each gable a different shade of brown. I was amazed that this was possible. We could do anything we wanted it seemed.”
Half-way through his architectural studies at Victoria University in Wellington, William traveled to France ( at first as a Rugby player ) where he was offered a place at the Bordeaux School of Architecture and Landscape design. It was here that he studied under a number of renouned French Architects including the Pritzker winning architects, Lacation & Vassal. Over this time William participated in student projects based in Casablanca and China, studying the way people lived and worked according to their environment.
This focus on design through heritage and culture gave William a unique and holistic outlook, influencing his design approach.
William also worked as part of a team on a number of large scale architectural and urban competitions in France, including the redesign of the Bordeaux River Front and the development of the Bordeaux Tramway syst.
He returned to New Zealand in 1999 and graduated as an Architect at Victoria University of Wellington in 2000.