This is how Samanta Michalewicz designs. A peek into her new studio

She started working in the profession in 2017, when she founded her own interior design studio, ARTchitektura Michalewicz. Samanta Michalewicz is a graduate in architecture and urban planning. She recently opened her new studio in an atmospheric townhouse in Zielona Góra. It is a meticulously furnished space that offers the opportunity to comfortably meet with clients, learn about material samples, finishing elements and prepare designs for the most demanding clients.

Kamil Białas: Where did your interest in interior design come from?

My path to interior design was convoluted. I even thought about studying law. It wasn’t until my final years of high school that architecture came to mind. Ever since I can remember, I’ve enjoyed creating something new, inventing, drawing, being creative. At the last minute, I chose to study architecture and urban planning. These studies combined everything that interested me. Humanities, psychological sciences, technical sciences, spatial thinking…

That’s the theory. How about practice?

During my engineering studies, we had to do internships. I was already strongly connected to France, fluent in French, so with the help of friends from there we found the perfect internship for me. On the Côte d’Azur, with an Italian architect. Enrico Curti, to whom I ended up, is an architect from Turin. We visited construction sites together. While supervising one house in Monaco, we were also able to see the construction of the famous Tour Odéon, which was nearby. (At the time of completion, it was the second tallest skyscraper in the Mediterranean with the world’s most expensive penthouse per sq m). Enrico often commissioned me to refresh his clients’ interiors. In this way, I had the pleasure of taking care of the interior makeover of Davisto ‘s Italian restaurant in Nice, or helping to refresh the interiors at the summer residence of certain Italian politicians in Châteauneuf-Grasse. I think Enrico commissioned me to design these interiors because he didn’t enjoy them. I, on the other hand, found that I enjoyed it immensely. After my internship ended, I returned to university.

In the end, you stayed with interior design.

What I liked about interior design is that I can fulfil myself creatively and see the result of my work quite quickly. I work with the client and only consult with them on a design that takes their needs into account. Building design, on the other hand, is a wonderful thing, there is no shortage of the creative and imaginative side, but in addition it involves a lot of bureaucracy, legal and formal issues. With these thoughts, I started my second degree and defended in 2016 with the late Prof. Dr.-Ing. arch. Zbigniew Bacy, who chaired the Committee on Architecture and Urban Planning of the Polish Academy of Sciences (2005-2016) and was one of the country’s few specialists and researchers in the field of shaping residential architecture and habitat from an interdisciplinary perspective. A year after graduating, I decided to open an author’s studio. And so, in 2017, ARTchitektura Michalewicz was founded.

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You design spacious flats, modern homes… Who uses your services?

I am open to working with anyone who values my sense of aesthetics. I am most often approached by clients who are already building their second or third home. Having learned from experience, they place emphasis on their needs. They know what they want, they value quality and comfort. They are aware of how much a renovation can cost, as they have already had many such projects in their lives. They come to me on recommendation. By working with me, they gain time for themselves and want to have peace of mind knowing that the design and implementation is being handled by someone who knows their stuff. My clients appreciate the aesthetics that are close to me. They want to live in elegant interiors with a classic feel, but also with a modern twist. Of course, there are also younger clients.

What are your design inspirations? What is it like working with you?

An endless deck of inspiration for me is French interiors – but not those of the South – I mean those of Paris, Haussmann. So I get my inspiration from travelling to France. I remember when I was a student we discussed the Great Reconstruction of Paris in the 19th century. At the time, I was absorbing this knowledge like magic. I read countless amounts of material on the subject. I am also interested in late 17th- and 18th-century France and the figure of Louis XIV, the Sun King, who transformed his father’s hunting lodge into one of the most beautiful royal palaces – the Palace of Versailles. This is a rich source of inspiration, especially in terms of details, such as elements of French herringbone, Versailles parquet, marbles, chequerboard pattern, fabrics, stucco or symmetry.

And what does a collaboration with me look like? I always start with a few meetings, researching the clients’ needs. I send the investors a rather extensive questionnaire with questions about what they want in a new interior. For example, I ask them about specific solutions – are they in favour of concealed or surface-mounted mixers? Stone or conglomerate worktops? In the privacy of their own home, the clients have time to complete their answers. Next, I work out the core of the project, i.e. the functional-spatial layout, then we move on to the visualisation – the stage that creates the most excitement among clients. Next, there is time for looking at samples, products, colours, putting together the materials from the project, possibly replacing elements, preparing offers for the assortment in shops. Then there are all the technical drawings, such as the electrical diagram, the distribution of materials on the walls, floors, ceilings, and so on.

Do customers come in for specific trends?

I have always been and will always be the ‘anti-trend’. I don’t know what design trends are or will be. I repeat to my clients that we design interiors for them and they are the ones who are supposed to like them. They are the ones who are supposed to feel good in these interiors. We should choose what we feel good in, after all we are designing spaces to live in, to experience joys and sorrows, to spend every day in. Let’s do it in such a way that they feel it with their whole selves.

Of course, I take part in various industry training courses, I keep up to date with product innovations, but in order to broaden my knowledge and to be able to offer new solutions to my clients.

You recently opened your new office. Where is it located?

I opened my new studio in October 2024. The office is located on the Old Market Square on Żeromskiego Street in Zielona Góra. Its location in the city centre and its location in an old building is a huge advantage. The office is 80 sq m and the interior has an amphitheatre layout. At the entrance we have a straight line view of all the rooms. At its end I have the office where I work. The last wall is decorated with the studio’s large logo, which acts as a dominant feature. We have already moved away from the amphitheatre layout in design. It was rather popular in the Baroque or Renaissance, but for me it is a real gem of this place. I also really like the old tiled cooker with its characteristic relief. Today it decorates the interior beautifully.

You started the design of your new office with… the purchase of a chair. What is this piece of furniture? How did it influence the interior design?

When I was looking for an idea for furnishing my office, I went to an antique market in a town near Zielona Góra. There I found a chair that I immediately fell in love with. The piece of furniture was imported from France and was probably used by someone as a dressing table chair. It has pink velour upholstery and golden legs. From this antiques market, she brought back two more old mirrors, a patera and brass candlesticks. These items bring a vintage twist to the interior, matching my ‘old soul’ (laughs). Amidst the ubiquitous white and bright furniture, they catch the eye and are the icing on the cake. In addition, I managed to hunt down some great coffee tableware from the 1960s, and the customers love it.

All in all, I did the whole office project in two evenings. I knew what atmosphere I wanted to achieve. The style here is elegant and cosy. There are many references to French décor, whether through stucco or accessories. In addition to white and broken white, there is a touch of black here, and shades of blue appear in the entrance room.

I have beautiful curtains and drapes from HS’s friendly window decorator Hanna Szlachetko, who usually also does window decorations for my projects. One of the rooms has my original curtain up-do that I designed a few years ago. The girls realised the updo and I use the item in many of my projects.

The new office is not just a studio. It also acts as a showroom, what can you see here?

In addition to countless pattern books, I have a very large display of furniture from the Polish upholstered furniture manufacturer ABSYNTH. I have designed the whole thing so that the showroom looks like a flat, with products from this manufacturer in the lead role. I am their official partner and you can also buy them from me. I have most of their gems, from the Sulla or Rey recliner to theGIrO sofa, the Moon, the Laroc armchairs , the 212 or the Laroc 66 chairs and the Ringtable , with its beautifully elegant base, which serves as my desk. In addition, you can see and buy stuccowork by Orac, with whom I have been designing for many years.

You have designed a special area for your clients. Where did you get the idea for such expressive wallpaper?

The client meeting area is located in the central area. I have placed lounge furniture and a large table here, where we discuss projects. On the wall, in addition to the stucco in one place, there is wallpaper with a Toile de Jouy pattern in pearl grey. And the history of this pattern is very interesting. It was invented by the dyer Christophe-Philippe Oberkampf in 1760 in the town of Jouy en-Josas near Versailles as a form of printing on fabrics (and at the time, printing was something of an innovation). The work of his manufactory was so desirable in France that in time it became the Royal Manufactory. The founders gained the affection of Marie Antoinette herself, wife of Louis XVI (a descendant of ‘my’ Louis XIV). So something was created for her. The pattern depicts idyllic games, genre scenes at court or at the Petit Trianon (the classical palace in the gardens of Versailles). I ordered the wallpaper from the French manufacturer Casadeco without knowing the story beforehand. Today, quite a few people may be familiar with the pattern, French brands use it as a historical legacy, and the most popular is certainly the fashion house Dior, which has created its own interpretation of it. They put it on handbags, twill or sets – in different colour variations and on different materials.

It is also worth mentioning the other wallpaper I have in the office, in the entrance area, the so-called blue room. It is a wallpaper in the form of a reproduction of Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun’s 1783 painting Madame Grand. Perversely – I chose it in a version scrawled with careless blue graffiti, so as not to make it too pathetic.

There are more objects in your office.

I have a lot of pattern books collected over the years from various manufacturers. There are also those from Kontakt Simon, with whom I hold the position of first Polish ambassador, along with nine other great design offices from all over Poland. I have countless fabrics, wallpapers, wood floors – French herringbone , of course, from Jawor Parkiet, quartz sinters, of which I even designed myself a table to discuss projects with clients. I chose the Bergen pattern from the Spanish manufacturer Dekton (by Cosentino). Also in my office, I can create moodboards for head-to-toe projects with clients. I took care of the smallest detail. I had to have a TV in the office to clearly present and discuss projects with clients. Here, too, I did not leave the choice to chance – I chose the Samsung THE FRAME model , which looks like a painting on the wall.

Why? I think it would be a disservice to put a big black TV on the wall in such an interior among the stucco and other carefully chosen details. The Samsung THE FRAME model has interchangeable frames (mine are white but I can change them at any time) and, in blank mode, displays various images from selected museums around the world. You can even choose a passe-partout option. In my case, the painting Le boulevard Montmartre un matin d’hiver by Camille Pissarro from 1897is most often displayed on the screen . It fits perfectly into the interior with its calmness and colour.

source: Samanta Michalewicz(https://artchitektura.eu)

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