Wakana Design Co. is led by building designer Katrina Girling, who believes good homes come from thoughtful design, careful listening, and a healthy respect for how people actually live.
She is a qualified Building Designer. Backed by formal training, she holds a current QBCC licence and professional indemnity insurance. Katrina has worked in residential design and construction for many years, developing experience in sustainable building, drafting, construction documentation, interior design, and the technical side of bringing homes from idea to reality. Her work is grounded in a strong focus on how buildings sit within and respond to the surrounding landscape.
Along the way she also studied psychology, which sparked a lasting interest in how our built environments affect the way we think, feel, and function day to day.
For Katrina, designing a home isn’t just about floor plans and elevations. It’s about how a space feels when the afternoon light comes through the windows, how a kitchen works when a family is cooking together, or how a house quietly supports life as it shifts over time. It’s this mix of technical thinking and lived experience that continues to shape the way she designs.
She lives on an off-grid rural property in Far North Queensland with her family. Outside of work, much of her time is spent raising her children and working on the property, with a strong connection to the outdoors and a natural eye for photography, often drawn to light, landscape, and the quieter moments of everyday life.
Katrina works closely with clients, builders, and consultants throughout the design process, helping guide projects from early ideas through to detailed documentation. Her aim is to create homes that are calm, considered, and deeply connected to the people who live in them.
