Where It Began: Twenty Years of Wallcovering Inspiration
Every design practice begins with a single belief. For WCI, that belief was formed in Cape Town in 2005 — in a spare studio with a work table, rolls of material, and Table Mountain on the horizon. The belief was simple: a wall is never just a surface. It is the architecture of atmosphere. That conviction has been the source of every project we have taken on in the twenty years since.
WCI was founded as a family studio, built around a shared obsession with materials, craft, and the way a surface transforms how a space feels to live inside. We had noticed the same thing repeatedly — that the interiors which resonated most, which held their quality over time, were the ones where the walls had been treated with the same intention as every other architectural decision in the room.
That observation became our practice. Our wallcovering inspiration has always come from the space itself — its light, its scale, its character. We begin every project with a conversation, not a catalogue. We listen to what a space needs before we propose what it should carry.
Over two decades, WCI has grown from that founding studio into a multidisciplinary team working across residential, hospitality, and commercial interiors throughout South Africa and beyond. The collections have deepened. The collaborations have expanded. The craft has been refined through hundreds of projects.
Through all of it, we have remained a studio at heart — close to the work, present in every project, accountable to every surface we specify and install.
A new chapter is coming. A new website, a new digital collection library, and new ways to bring our work to the architects, designers, and private clients we have the privilege of collaborating with. The mountain hasn’t moved. Neither have we.