The studio
Two designers. One vision for your home.
Wak’a Designs is a boutique studio in Lennox Head, founded in 2016 by Mohana Aspillaga and Gabriel Borges, partners in design and in life. Together they shape the building and the interiors as one, so every home feels resolved from the first sketch to the final styled room.
A life designed around home
For us, a good life lives in the everyday: slow mornings, shared meals, time with family and friends. Most of those moments happen at home, so we design spaces that make every day feel like the best part of life.
Mohana designed resorts in Peru before moving to Australia for her second degree. Gabriel arrived from Rio de Janeiro straight after graduating. Our careers have been built here in Australia, and together we bring more than 30 years of experience to your project. Travel is what fills our hearts and how we keep growing: every culture we meet opens new connections in the mind, and we come home with a material, a way of catching the light, a ritual worth keeping.
We bring that curiosity to your project with open minds. We listen closely to your ideas, then offer ours, shaped by two cultures and many places. The result feels at home in the Australian landscape, with a touch you will not find anywhere else.
Design Director · Interiors
Mohana Aspillaga
Mohana brings more than 13 years across luxury residential, high-rise residential, hospitality, wellness and furniture design. She began her career designing high-end resorts in Peru, then moved to Australia to complete her second degree, and her career has been here ever since. She leads every interior the studio creates: spatial planning, joinery, materials, lighting, furniture and styling, through to the day you move in.
Shaped by years living between South America, Europe, Indonesia and Australia, she designs with natural materials and a calm, considered eye. She also designs and manufactures furniture under her own label, MOA Curations, and, together with Gabriel, created Wak’a Villa, a boutique beachfront retreat on her own land on the northern Peruvian coast.
Qualifications, expertise and passions+
- Qualifications
- Bachelor of Interior Architecture
Bachelor of Commercial Interior Design
Contract Administration in Construction
Project Management in Construction - Expertise
- Luxury residential interiors, high-rise residential, hospitality and wellness spaces, joinery and cabinetry, FF&E, custom furniture, styling, project management, design and team leadership
- Passions
- Natural materials, timber and stone, barefoot luxury, travel, collecting interior pieces, energy and mindset, homes that feel calm the moment you arrive
Building Design Director
Gabriel Borges
Gabriel brings more than 20 years of design experience, all of it in Australia: he moved here straight after earning his Bachelor of Architecture in Rio de Janeiro. From large firms to boutique studios, he has worked across high-end residential, health, education and commercial projects. He leads the building design of every Wak’a home: site planning, concept design, council approvals and construction detailing, so each home sits gracefully on its land and builds with certainty.
Gabriel is known for making every project feel easy. Clients and builders love working with him: he keeps the process light, meets the complex with calm and turns every meeting into a pleasant one. Away from the studio you will find him in the surf, travelling or cooking for friends, living the beach life that shapes the homes he designs.
Qualifications, expertise and passions+
- Qualifications
- Bachelor of Architecture
Contract Administration in Construction
Contract Management in Construction - Expertise
- High-end residential, new homes, renovations and extensions, site planning, council approvals, construction documentation, project management, liaising with builders and consultants, health, education and commercial design
- Passions
- Surfing, travel, cooking, carpentry and construction, the beach lifestyle, travel stories and books about the great explorers
One team. Every decision.
How we work
Personally
You work directly with Mohana and Gabriel on every project, from the first conversation to the final styled room.
As one
Building design and interiors develop together, so the architecture of each room and everything within it feel resolved.
Intentionally
We guide you like a coach: we help you organise your ideas, then bring what you have always imagined onto paper and into your home.
For the long term
Natural, sustainable materials and lasting craftsmanship, chosen to age with grace for decades.
Start your project.
Tell us about the home you imagine. We will arrange a complimentary conversation to listen, share ideas and map out a clear path forward.
Gabriel +61 405 856 541
Mohana +61 447 272 800
info@wakadesigns.com
Lennox Head, NSW
Builders, trades and suppliers: choose “Trade or supplier” below and tell us about your work.