Inside an interior design workflow where project phases, product decisions, client feedback and commercial detail stay connected from first brief to final install.
How Studio Major keeps the
work behind the work visible
Park Avenue
New York City, USA
A finished room makes hundreds of decisions look inevitable. The flooring meets the wallbase. The pendant falls at the right height. The mirror arrives in the correct finish. By the time the project is photographed, the work that carried each decision there has mostly disappeared.
Studio Major's Programa workspace makes that work visible.
Across its residential projects, the studio has built a clear route from early research through design development, permitting, installation and closeout. Project boards hold tasks and subtasks. Schedules carry product dimensions, finishes, pricing, suppliers, lead times and status. Client feedback stays with the item under review. Time, approvals and schedule value can be read from the project overview. Even the photography after install is planned as part of the project.
The result is not a generic checklist laid over a creative practice. It is a working structure shaped around the way Studio Major designs.
Start with phases, not a flat list
One of the clearest expressions of Studio Major's method is its phase structure.
The work begins with a pre-phase, then moves through research and restrictions, schematic and design development, construction documentation and permitting, demolition and rough-in, finishes and detailing, and finally closeout and reflection.
Within those phases, the tasks are concrete. Field documentation sits beside building rules and architect coordination. Cost calibration has a place alongside design iteration. A permit path can carry notes, subtasks and comments rather than living as a heading in a separate document.
Studio Major can read the same project as a board, a list or a timeline. The view changes, but the underlying work does not. A principal can scan what sits in To Do, In Progress, In Review or Done, while the person completing a task can open the detail beneath it.
That distinction matters. Design work is rarely linear, but it still needs a legible next move.
“[PLACEHOLDER: approved Studio Major pull quote to come. Interview prompt: What does a well-run project make possible for the design? Do not publish without it.]”
Studio MajorTBC
Give every selection enough context to travel
The studio's schedules are not simply product collections. Each row acts as a compact project record.
A furniture or lighting item can carry an image, document code, product and brand, dimensions, colour, finish, material, quantity, lead time, supplier and project status. Flooring schedules hold the same level of specificity. Shipping and installation can be broken into their own rows rather than folded into the cost of an object and forgotten.
This is the point where a design decision becomes usable beyond the person who made it. The row shows the selection, the detail needed to quote it, what is expected to arrive and whether the item is still a draft, approved, paid, delivered or installed.
The format does not make the decision for Studio Major. It makes the decision clear enough to move through the rest of the project.
Keep client feedback with the product
Client feedback is most useful when it remains attached to the object, finish or fixture that prompted it.
Studio Major's approval history shows products moving through review with their decision and comment intact. Outstanding choices can be separated from the history of what has already been approved or rejected. The studio can return to a previous decision without reconstructing it from meeting notes or an email chain.
That creates a more useful record than approval alone. It preserves the reason behind the next move.
For the designer, the benefit is not fewer conversations at any cost. It is better context when the conversation continues. A rejected pendant can lead directly to the next lighting option. An approved mirror keeps the comment that explained what the client valued about it.
Let the numbers sit beside the design
Selections do not move through a project on visual information alone.
Studio Major's financial schedule views place retail price, trade price, discount, tax, quantity and total beside the same product information used for specification. Schedule-level summaries make the commercial shape of a room or package visible, while item-level detail preserves the calculation underneath it.
That level of separation is important. The cost of an object is distinct from its shipping. Installation can be tracked as its own line. A custom tax treatment remains visible. The practical work does not disappear inside a single total.
Programa does not remove the judgement involved in a budget conversation. It gives Studio Major a record detailed enough to support one.
Carry the project beyond install
One of the most telling schedules in the workspace is not for furniture, lighting or finishes. It is for photography and video.
Studio Major has treated the final shoot as a production in its own right, with separate lines for interior photography, editing and retouching, floral arrangements, videography and the smaller pieces of hospitality that make a shoot day work.
It is a precise glimpse of how the studio thinks. The project does not end when the last product is marked installed. Documentation, presentation and reflection are part of the closeout. The finished work still needs to be recorded with the same care used to deliver it.
Design the practice, too
At studio level, the same principle extends beyond any single project.
To-dos are grouped around supplier research, photography, project activity and the administrative work that sits between them. The address book distinguishes suppliers, clients and other contacts. Product and image libraries sit alongside procurement, purchase orders and time tracking.
This is often the invisible labour of a small studio: maintaining relationships, preparing a shoot, following up with a brand, checking a supplier and making sure a decision reaches the person who needs it. Studio Major turns that labour into named work.
The method is considered without becoming rigid. Structure does not compete with the studio's creative work. It gives that work a better chance of reaching the room intact.
The lesson worth borrowing
Studio Major's use of Programa offers a useful lesson for any design practice: the studio itself is a design project.
Its workflow has stages. Its information needs hierarchy. Its decisions need context. Its handoffs need to be understood by people who were not present when the original choice was made.
Programa gives Studio Major a way to express that operating method across projects. The rooms remain the visible result. The structure underneath is what helps the work get there.