Andrew Winch is a well-known name, and not only in yacht design - the maestro's drawing board also featured houses and airplanes. For more than twenty years his team has implemented truly amazing ideas suggested by their clients.
- What attracts you in working on yacht projects? How much does designing a yacht differ from designing a house?
- Yacht projects are incredibly three dimensional but linear in planning, so that the pleasure comes from innovation in the 3d arrangements. Especially in creating views through the interior and to the exterior and what is even more fun is to look vertically. We currently have a 6m project with an atrium straircase which is topped off with a glass skylight from the floor of the sundeck swimming pool.
Yachts are restricted by the shape and dimensions of the hull, whereas a house can expand in any direction required by the planning of the accomodation. So yachts like jets are a challenge to achieve a creative and individual image with a unique arrangement whilst still being practical and realistic.
- You are the author of a great number of projects. Do you have a favorite project?
- I am lucky enough to have been working in this custom design industry for nearly 28 years. Each of our projects has developed into an individual whether classical, contemporary, motor, sailing mono/multi hull, and we are now developing large private jets as flying homes, as well as ground breaking land based projects, with houses in Sardinia, Moscow, Poland and England. I think every project we have done is my favourite! They are successful if the client is happy.
- Where do you keep your yachting awards, at home or in the office?
- Our studio is by the Thames in London in a contemporary interior we designed ourselves. We have collected many awards over the last 22 years and these are on the walls for our clients to see.
- How do you select the staff? Who has a chance to get a job in your company?
- Creativity, enthusiasm and enjoyment in one’s work gets you through the door into AWD. We’re always looking for great people, whether they’re interior designers, special decorators, industrial designers, illustrators or model makers. Now have 26 people in the office in two buildings. Many of my team have been with me a significant number of years. They stay with the company because of its exciting atmosphere and collaborative support of their colleagues, this is definitely felt by our clients who enjoy working with the studio and my team.
- You are a designer of the 21st century. Do you use a simple pencil?
- I’m holding a pencil while I write this answer. I probably can’t work without a pencil and simple pad of white paper. Sometimes by ideas are sketched, sometimes described and my team are very talented at interpreting the dreams! You will find in our studio that each designer has a very powerful Autocad computer system as well as an A0 size drawing board. I don’t believe you can be a great designer unless you can draw your ideas with a pencil.
- Judging by your projects you’re more into designing sail yachts. Could you explain why?
- I grew up sailing as a child, and sailing yachts have a purity and very strong emotional involvement with the water, both in their motion and with the wind in your face. Our first private project was a 36ft swan, and more recently a 3 masted schooner, so size isn’t the issue, but producing something special is the key to a great project.
- You have to deal with customers from a lot of countries. What are they different in? And what are they similar to?
- Clients that wish to hire AWD all wish to produce something unique, whichever country they’re from, they have their own idea of their dream and it is my job to interpret this and create it. A good drawing is a language in its own right and can be understood by everybody. As you’ve seen our website is translated into 7 languages as it is our job to make our new clients feel comfortable in contacting us and working with us.
- What is your main concern before the beginning of new project? Surnames of customers or theirs status or fortune?
- Their enthusiasm to create a great product, the quality of the product and the innovation. Quality is a signature of AWD and unfortunately quality comes at a cost. We are lucky enough to be building our projects at the very top shipyards and with the very best interior contractors.
- Your biggest project was a 128-meter motor yacht Minerva and the smallest one was a sail yacht Swan 36. Does it mean that when you design a sloop you spend less time and power?
- The largest project we have designed and were in the process of building was a 160m. This is now being completed with our interior as motor yacht Dubai. As you say, the smallest was a Swan 36. There is no connection between the size and amount of work required, the quality of detail takes time.
- Do you have a concept of what the yacht of the future will look like? What will be the interior of such yacht?
- achts have become more complicated and the dreams of all our clients have become both more educated and in some cases more demanding. A unique project is always the dream, so the future is unknown, but it should in my opinion be a yacht that reflects the beauty of the sea, the pleasure of space, and the freedom of time.
- Naval architectures have a concept of classic lines. That is an image of a yacht that doesn't become outdated. Is there the same concept in interior design?
- As we create both exteriors and interiors in yachts, the yacht line can be contemporary or classic. A great line even if contemporary or futuristic can in ten years be called a classic. The lines on the exterior of a yacht are unbelievably 3d, they are never straight as they curve and swoop in multi directions. Proportion and balance is probably the key to a classic today or a classic of yesterday.
- How did your cooperation with the Dutch Royal Huisman shipyard begin? Do you have any co-projects?
- I first started working with RHS while a project manager at Jon Bannenberg Limited - Acharne 112ft sloop. She was revolutionary in her exterior and interior and in her twin lifting centreboards and twin rudders! We’ve had six different projects with them since then, and looking to collaborate on two further projects with them including a180ft ketch.
- I know that you have designed the interior of G-OBBJ Boeing 737-800. Nothing is impossible for you as far as design goes, isn’t it?
- We were lucky enough to be involved in the first 737 after an introduction to a sailing yacht for a client. He saw our talent in quality of detail and 3d planning, the plane has revolutionised what can be done onboard a 737 with no gloss, no flash and no glitter. She is subtle, understated, but practical and comfortable.
- What could you say to the readers of "Aquatoria of Luxury Life" among who there are a lot of yachtsmen?
- I would invite readers of Aquatoria to consider AWD for projects, yachts, houses or planes, and would welcome them to our studio in London where all the dreams begin!
Konstantin Startsev
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