“Do no harm, because it’s more about the place than it is about the buildings.”
Last month, Greg Warner joined Nicole Hollis for a conversation about West Coast Modernism in Hawaii, hosted by SHLTR Magazine. In front of a packed house at the Center for Architecture + Design in San Francisco, the longtime friends took a deep dive into their earliest collaborations, exploring their design ethos and the importance of building strong relationships. “It’s a lot about listening and observing, rather than coming in with a specific agenda as to how to solve things,” Greg says.
Over the past two decades, the duo has partnered on a dozen projects between the mainland and Hawaii—the largest being Kona Village on the Big Island. “It wasn’t so much about the way it looks, but about the way it makes you feel,” Nicole says of the iconic resort. “We didn’t want to recreate it exactly the way it was, but we wanted to bring that spirit forward.”
Throughout the conversation, Greg and Nicole emphasized collaboration, humility, and authenticity—all touchstones of their enduring, site-sensitive designs. “As designers, when we go to a place, it’s about listening and understanding,” Greg says. “It’s about humility and context, which are fundamental to what we do.”
