Residential Living Environments + Private-Market Design

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​Katara Design Studio provides interior architecture and design services for residential living environments—from individual homes to multi-family communities—along with select lifestyle-driven private-market projects.

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Our work can encompass the full design process, from early visioning and spatial planning through material development, construction documentation, permitting, furnishings, and final installation. Services are tailored to the needs and scale of each project, whether transforming an existing home, shaping the interiors of a new residence, or developing the shared living and amenity environments of a multi-family community.

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Throughout the process, we consider not only how an environment functions and looks, but how it feels to inhabit—using space, light, material, texture, proportion, and connection to place to create environments that feel personal, intuitive, and enduring.

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Project Types

​Our current practice is focused on:

• Custom Residences

• Residential Renovations + Remodels

• New Residential Construction

• Multi-Family Residential

• Residential Amenity + Shared Living Environments

• Select Lifestyle-Driven Private-Market Projects

 

 

EXISTING CONDITIONS + DISCOVERY

Every project begins with understanding both the people and the place.

 

Services may include:

• Client discovery and lifestyle conversations

• Review of existing plans and documentation

• Site observation, field verification, and photographic documentation

• Existing-condition drawings

• Identification of spatial opportunities and constraints

• Preliminary code and accessibility review

• Coordination with the architectural and consultant team

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VISIONING + DESIGN DIRECTION

Before defining individual elements, we establish the larger experience of the project—how it should feel, function, and respond to the people who will inhabit it.

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Services may include:

• Project vision and design goals

• Lifestyle and functional requirements

• Exploration of atmosphere and sensory experience

• Design narrative and conceptual direction

• Precedent imagery and visual references

• Mood and material studies

• Preliminary color and material direction

• Relationship to architecture, landscape, and place

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SPACE PLANNING + INTERIOR ARCHITECTURE

We explore how spaces connect, flow, and support the rhythms of everyday life.

 

Services may include:

• Programming and spatial requirements

• Adjacency and circulation studies

• Test-fit planning

• Furniture and space planning

• Kitchen and bath planning

• Architectural interior elements

• Built-ins and custom millwork

• Ceiling and lighting concepts

• Interior elevations and spatial studies

• Integration between interior and exterior living environments

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DESIGN DEVELOPMENT + MATERIALITY

As the design evolves, the architectural concept becomes increasingly tactile and specific.

 

Services may include:

• Refinement of plans and interior architecture

• 2D and 3D design studies

• Material and finish palettes

• Flooring, wall, ceiling, and surface selections

• Stone and tile

• Plumbing fixtures

• Decorative and architectural lighting

• Doors and architectural hardware

• Custom cabinetry and millwork

• Custom architectural elements

• Color development

• Coordination of materials, texture, scale, and proportion

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CONSTRUCTION DOCUMENTATION + PERMITTING

We translate the design into coordinated information that allows the project team to understand, permit, and execute the design intent.

 

Services may include:

• Preparation of interior construction documents

• Plans, elevations, sections, and details

• Finish plans and schedules

• Millwork and custom-element documentation

• Interior specifications

• Coordination with architects, contractors, structural and MEP engineers, lighting designers, landscape designers, and other specialty consultants

• Preparation and coordination of documentation required for permit submittal, as applicable to project scope

• Plan-check coordination

• Responses and revisions related to Katara’s design scope through the permitting process

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CONSTRUCTION PHASE SERVICES

Our involvement can continue through construction to help preserve design intent as the project moves from drawings into built form.

 

Services may include:

• Construction-phase coordination

• Site observations

• OAC and design coordination meetings, as appropriate

• Review of finish and material submittals

• Shop drawing review related to interior design scope

• Responses to design-related RFIs

• Clarification of design intent

• Coordination of design modifications

• Punch-list observations and coordination

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FURNITURE, FIXTURES, ART + OBJECTS

The final layer of a home is deeply personal. Furnishings, art, objects, textiles, and lighting help transform architecture into an environment that feels inhabited, collected, and individual.

 

Services may include:

• Furniture planning and selection

• Custom furniture design and coordination

• Decorative lighting

• Rugs and textiles

• Window treatments

• Art consultation and placement

• Accessories and objects

• Furniture finishes and materials

• FF&E budget development

• Vendor, showroom, artisan, and manufacturer coordination

• Quotation and specification review

• Purchasing guidance and coordination

• Installation coordination and styling

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Katara Design Studio does not purchase or resell furnishings on behalf of clients. Purchases are made directly by the client through the applicable vendor, dealer, showroom, manufacturer, or other purchasing source.

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A COLLABORATIVE PROCESS

Katara works collaboratively with homeowners, developers, architects, builders, craftspeople, artists, and consultants, adapting our role to the needs of each project.

Whether engaged for a complete interior environment or a carefully defined portion of the design process, our goal remains the same: to create places that feel deeply connected to the people who inhabit them and meaningful within the context in which they belong.

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