This much I know: Hugh Wallace, Architect

I was taken for a fool in school. It wasn’t until I was about to do my Leaving Certificate that my English teacher suggested I might be dyslexic. 

I went for testing and they decided that I was.

I was so relieved. I was one of only eight to be diagnosed in Ireland that year and as a result my exams were partially oral which was a massive relief.

I went from being at the bottom of my class to being able to study architecture in Bolton Street.

I am very driven, but not disciplined. I’m sure that my being so driven stems back to being dyslexic. I had to believe in myself although others thought I was thick.

If you look at one of those personality type charts, I’m an ‘expressive’.

I love the initial start of any project but I need other people to come on board to help me to complete things.

I always knew I’d work in design. My uncle was an architect. I wanted to be a marine architect when I was a child.

I’m naturally shy and introverted.

I always loved drawing. I found it much easier to express myself through images than through words.

I gave up God some time ago.

I believe you make your own luck.

During the mad period, in the 1990s, my work and personal life were a mix and a complete mess.

These days, I’m good at separating work from the rest of my life.

I do not work weekends.

I leave the office at 5pm on a Friday and don’t return until 9am on Monday.

There was no tower crane in Dublin when I came out of college in the 1980s. There was no money. No jobs.

From my year, only two of us remained in Ireland. I began working in interior design because there was no demand for architects.

My firm found a niche: a way to passionately tell our clients’ stories.

Back then, if you’d money you might have a mobile home down in Wicklow. That was the height of it.

By the 1990s, it became, feck that, let’s buy a house in Marbella.

They were wild times, so creative, working with clients like Hermés and Brown Thomas and designing hotels like the Morrison and The G with Philip Treacy.

My idea of bliss is stepping onto an aeroplane.

I love travelling and ending up in places with new people and new experiences.

They don’t look at me as a 59 year old. They look at me as having experience and knowledge.

My idea of misery is not being creative. My biggest challenge was losing my business in 2009 [Douglas Wallace went into liquidation].

The whole world fell around me. I lost control of everything. It happened over 18 months.

I saw it coming but I couldn’t do anything about it. You think you can change things, you hope you can change things, but you can’t.

It was a very dark time personally even though I had the support of my partner Martin and of great friends and of many people who found themselves in a similar boat.

I’ve lost 35kg since then and my goal is to lose another 6kg before I’m 60. I want to live until I’m 90 and to enjoy it.

I get annoyed with politics, with the election. It’s as if how much people suffered has been forgotten.

We bought the company back from the receiver so we were able to maintain our pedigree and we are back in business.

The last five years have been a grind.

Financially, I have nothing really, but I’m a much happier person.

In my personal life I don’t give a damn any more, not in a disrespectful way, but I mean I am no longer ashamed.

If your world is falling apart, my advice is to try and live in that moment.

My greatest fear is to have regrets when I die.

So far, life has taught me that you have to be able to enjoy your own company.

* Hugh Wallace is a judge on Home of the Year where 21 homes compete for the title over eight weeks from March 3, RTÉ 1