about
Every space I’ve entered throughout my life has been a place for my mind to wonder and create…..
I’m Leslie Finnie. I’m an Architect and Interior Designer at Snøhetta. I graduated in 2019 with a Master of Architecture, including a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Architecture and minor in Interior Design from the Savannah College of Art and Design.
Growing up in New York City, with its infinite diversity of iconic skyscrapers, public areas, parks, and developments my awareness and sensibility of people’s unique needs when it comes to their interior and exterior environments. Community and functionality are important to me when creating spaces that promote ease, wellness, awareness, and unique interactions with our built environments. During college, I worked for four years as an intern with the architecture firms: Gensler, G70, and Studio DB, where I’ve developed proficient skills in 3D BIM digital design/engineering software, graphic design, and rendering. During my first year of graduate school, I won 1st place recipient of the 2018 Lyceum Fellowship Design Competition: Form, Community, & Culture with her innovative graduate capstone project called, “Guelph Living City Market”, a sustainable farmer’s market design in Guelph, Canada. The jurors, Snøhetta and few other firms, were thoroughly impressed with my innovative proposal to bring sustainability and farming culture back into the urban realm of the city. I used the award funds to travel to my favorite coastal and sustainable communities in Japan, Greece, Amsterdam, and Norway. The trip was incredibly insightful and exposed me to a plethora of knowledge that later went into my work as a full-time Architect.
For me, Architecture is the art of storytelling. I’ve always been intrigued by the schematic design process in the beginning phases of an architecture project. Before drafting the structure or selecting the finishes designers must organically generate ideas derived from what we discover about an environment and its culture. There’s a captivating dialogue between us and our built environments. It speaks to the influence that architecture has on one’s visceral experience, and how each space and environment I create is a chapter of the structure’s story. I enjoy being in a career where one of the key challenges is learning how to transform your inspiration into a built form. My all-nighters in the design studio are spent trying to merge various concepts by pulling inspiration from several different forms of media. From pop artists like Takashi Murakami to fashion designers like Virgil Abloh I’m fascinated by how different design forms can be utilized to develop the dialogue of my building concepts on projects in Snøhetta.