Welcome to a working journal
A quiet place to think out loud about interiors, light, and the practice of building beautiful spaces.
This is a working journal. Not a magazine, not a portfolio, not a brand mouthpiece — a notebook kept in public.
The intent is small and specific. I want a place to think out loud about three things that, in my practice, are not really three things at all: interior design, lighting, and the management of getting beautiful work actually built. Most of the writing I admire treats these as separate disciplines. That has never matched my experience. The best rooms I have ever stood in are the result of a single mind keeping all three threads pulled tight at the same time.
What you’ll find here
The work falls into a few recurring formats:
- Project showcases — studies of work that is mine, presented as careful drawings, renders, and notes on decisions made. Not finished photography. Process.
- Critical eye — close readings of projects by other studios I admire, with a particular interest in what their lighting choices reveal about their priorities.
- Method notes — the unglamorous side. Briefs, scope, milestones, the disciplines I use to keep a project from drifting.
- Material studies — short technical pieces. CRI. Plaster. The geometry of a stair detail. Things I keep wanting to look up.
- Curated — a running list of studios, projects, and pieces of writing I keep returning to.
What you won’t find here
Tutorials, mood boards without commentary, lifestyle commentary on the idea of beautiful homes. Plenty of writers do that well. I want to do something different — read a project the way I would read a book.
The first studies arrive in the coming weeks. If you’d like to be notified when they do, the newsletter at the bottom of the page is the way.
— Iara