The designers who do
our commercial work
These are the people who design restaurants, cafes, bars and workspaces for us. Commercial work is a different discipline from residential, not a bigger version of it, and the designers below are the ones who do it, from concept through to delivery.
You can approach one of them directly, or tell us about the project and we will put you with whoever fits it best. Either way you are talking to the person who would do the work, rather than to someone who passes you on once the project is signed.
What actually matters
when you pick one
Most people choose a commercial designer on portfolio photography, which tells you what their finished rooms look like and almost nothing about whether your project will go well. Three things matter more, and they are worth asking any studio about, including this one.
- Have they worked inside your constraints. Extraction, servicing routes, fire strategy, accessibility, licensing conditions and landlord restrictions shape a commercial interior far more than taste does. A designer who has met those before will spot the problem on the first call rather than in month three.
- Do they design for the operation, not just the opening night. Covers, customer flow, staff walking distances, how the space cleans down, how it behaves when it is full. A venue that photographs well and runs badly is a very expensive kind of failure.
- Will they still be there during the build. Schemes lose their best details quietly, on site, when someone substitutes a material or moves a fitting for convenience. Ask who is holding the design at that point, because that is where the money you spent on it either survives or disappears.
Scroll on for the designers themselves, or read what the service covers on hospitality and workspace design.
Design measured against
how the space performs
Whichever designer you work with, the scope is the same. Interior design from concept through to implementation support, for spaces that have to earn their keep.
- Space planning and layout optimisation. Maximising usable space and covers, improving customer flow, and keeping the day to day operation efficient. This is the part with the clearest commercial return and the part decided earliest.
- Design development and zoning. Where people enter, wait, sit and leave, where staff work and how far they walk, and how the areas of the space relate to each other.
- Full furniture, lighting and materials specification. Chosen to be visually right and suitable for commercial use, which is a different test from domestic. Contract-grade pieces survive the cleaning regimes and the traffic. Domestic ones look identical on day one.
- Lighting for atmosphere and for function. Both at once, because the scheme has to work at service and at six in the morning.
- Your brand made physical. The material, light and layout decisions that tell somebody what kind of place they are in before a member of staff says a word.
- Coordination with contractors and suppliers. Through the build, so what was drawn is what gets installed.
We do not carry out construction. Studio Akiva is an interior design studio, so we work alongside your contractor, or with a trusted partner where you do not have one, and anything structural sits with your structural engineer. Worth knowing before you enquire rather than after.
The kinds of projects
these designers take
From an independent operator fitting out a first site to a developer briefing several at once.
Talk to one of them
The next step is an hour with the designer, by phone or video, about the actual site. You can name the person you want from above or ask us to match you, and if the honest answer on that call is that you need an architect, a licensing consultant or a contractor before you need an interior designer, you will be told so on the call rather than after an invoice.
Every commercial project is then scoped individually on size, complexity and how much support you need. Where the project warrants it, the proposal that follows names the deliverables, the timeline and the fees before you commit to anything.
What the service covers sits on hospitality and workspace design, completed venues on the restaurant and bar projects page, and our commercial terms are published in full on the commercial terms page, before you enquire rather than after.
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