i've been low-key collecting interiors for a while now — not the loud, trend-chasing kind, but the ones that feel like they had to look that way, given the building they live in. and I noticed something: my favorite projects almost never start from a blank slate. they start from an argument with a piece of architecture that already had an opinion — a brownstone, a homestead, a haussmannian apartment — and the studio's job was to actually listen to it before adding anything new. that's the thread running through all six of these. not trend-proof because they're neutral, but because they're in conversation with something older than the moodboard.
studio db — a tudor transformed.
what gets me about this one is the “before” — a house that had been decorated by committee, basically, every room speaking a different design language with no throughline, but a common touch to them.
studio db's move wasn't to erase that history, it was to strip back to what the tudor bones actually wanted (the woodwork, the proportions) and then layer their own eclectic, slightly whimsical hand on top — an asymmetrical velvet sofa, a custom-dyed rug the size of a small apartment, deep midnight-blue millwork against a kehinde wiley painting. it's proof that “respecting the architecture” doesn't mean playing it safe.
you can be playful and still be in dialogue with a 1908 house, as long as you actually know what you're responding to.
roman and williams — brooklyn townhouse.
this is the opposite direction of most renovations you see — someone had already made this house “clean” and the new owners wanted it undone. r&w leaned all the way into moody, textured, slightly gothic-feminine layering in a "well off Jane Austin character with taste" way : antique daybeds, aubusson rugs, curiosities that make a room feel collected over decades instead of installed in six months.
That’s why they are one of my favourite studios. what I am living for is the implied argument here: sometimes the most timeless move isn't adding history, it's refusing to sand it off in the first place.
gachot — soho triplex.
a penthouse triplex built out of a decommissioned water tower on top of a soho building.
soho's whole identity is industrial — raw volume, big windows, buildings that used to make things. gachot took that bones-and-light heritage and turned it into something theatrical and social, a warm neutral base built specifically for hosting, for moving between rooms.
it's not ignoring the industrial DNA of the building, it's translating it — turning “raw space” into “generous space,” which honestly feels like the right read of what soho actually is now.
fabrizio casiraghi — october 2021 apartment, paris.
a residential apartment in paris, france, completed october 2021 for a private client.
this one's less about a single loud architectural gesture and more about how many different worlds it lets sit in the same room without any of them winning. i mean...there's a palm reaching almost to the ceiling in the middle of it, doing more to soften the room than any styling choice could.
a mustard-yellow bouclé armchair next to sheer floor-to-ceiling curtains, a pair of hand-carved wooden lattice panels that read almost north-african against a brass dome pendant that could be straight out of a 1970s milanese apartment.
it's restrained-maximalism doing what it does best: nothing here is neutral, but together it reads calm.
eric egan — milan apartment.
his own 19th-century apartment on piazza castello, milan.
this one's personal for him, which you can feel — he's described it as “old-lady chic” crossed with a new york alter ego, fortuny curtains next to a more masculine, worldly edge.
what's interesting is that this isn't a studio translating someone else's architecture, it's a designer translating himself through it — an american sensibility living inside a specifically milanese shell, the two design cultures actually talking to each other instead of one winning, whilst donna summer spectates upon it all.
flack studio — elmore homestead.
out of everything on this list, this is the most literal version of “the architecture told them what to do” — flack studio pulled the palette straight off the land around the house: the muted greens and browns of the paddocks, the almost-shocking yellow of a canola field in bloom, the amber light at sunset.
it's dark, moody, a little melancholic in places, and it reads less like “interior design” and more like the house finally admitting where it's standing.
if any of this made you want to slow down and actually enjoy those spaces— save this post, and hit me up. i'd genuinely love to talk timeless design with you, or hear about a project you're obsessed, or u want to create together. u can follow my work on my ig page @obe111ct