How to Find an Interior Designer Who Works With Architects in New York
Updated: Oct 6
Most homeowners planning a major renovation or new-construction home hire the architect first and start thinking about the interior designer somewhere around the drywall stage. By then, the framing is done, the plumbing is roughed in, the lighting layout is locked, and every meaningful decision that shapes how the home actually lives has been made without the designer in the room. If you're planning a project in New York, the Hamptons, or Miami and you want the architect and interior designer to work as one team, the sequence matters more than the résumé of either person.
I've run Studio Kestrel since 2019, and the pattern I see most often on projects we take over mid-stream is the same: a good architect, a good designer hired eighteen months too late, and a client paying twice for the same decisions. This piece is about how to hire an interior designer who actually works with architects.
For the broader question of how to hire an interior designer, see our full guide to hiring an interior designer for a luxury home.
Why the architect-designer collaboration matters more than either alone
The architect defines the shell — walls, windows, ceiling heights, structural decisions, plumbing and electrical rough-in. The interior designer defines how the shell is used — furniture layouts, lighting design, millwork, finishes, storage, the specific dimensions of every custom piece that gets built into the walls. Those two scopes overlap by roughly forty percent. When the two teams are brought in together, that overlap becomes coordination. When they're brought in sequentially, the overlap becomes rework.
The clearest example: a kitchen island. The architect draws it as a rectangle on the plan to establish the room's proportions. The designer specifies its actual dimensions — depth, overhang, seating clearance, outlet locations, waterfall stone joints, appliance panel alignment. If the designer is hired after the plumbing rough-in is complete, the sink location is fixed and the island has to be sized around it rather than the other way around. That single sequencing error can add $30,000 to $80,000 in change orders on a full renovation.
When to hire the interior designer relative to the architect
Bring the interior designer in at the same time as the architect, or within the first 30 days of the architect starting schematic design. That's the answer for 95% of projects.
There are two exceptions. On a light renovation with no structural or plumbing changes, the designer can be hired after the architect has produced a permit set. On a pied-à-terre or refresh with no architect involved at all, the timing question doesn't apply. Every other scenario — full gut, whole-home turnkey, new construction, combination of units — the designer belongs in the first meeting.
What happens when the sequence goes wrong
On a full-gut renovation and combination of two units at 57 Ocean in Miami's Mid-Beach, the client brought us in more than a year after the architect had started. A previous interior designer had been working in parallel with the architect rather than with them, and the interior plans reflected it: layouts, millwork, and lighting had been developed without coordination with the architectural drawings.
After our first presentation, the client asked us to set the earlier plan aside and redesign the interiors almost from scratch. More than a year of architectural work then had to be revisited alongside an entirely new interior scheme, and that rework added time and cost the client hadn't planned for. The finished home is one the client loves, but the cleanest version of that project would have had us in the room on day one.
That project is why I'm strict about the sequencing question. Every claim in this article about the cost of hiring late comes from projects like that one.
What to ask a designer about their architect collaborations
When you interview a designer for a project that involves an architect, the questions that matter are process questions, not portfolio questions. Ask these five:
Walk me through how you coordinate with the architect on a full renovation — what drawings do you produce, and at what phase? A designer who works with architects will describe a specific process — furniture plans and reflected ceiling plans during schematic design, millwork elevations during design development, finish schedules and plumbing fixture schedules during construction documents. A vague answer is the answer.
At what point in a project do you prefer to be hired? The right answer is "at the same time as the architect, or within thirty days." Anything else is a warning.
How do you handle reflected ceiling plans? The reflected ceiling plan (RCP) is where designer-architect coordination lives or dies — lighting circuits, sprinkler heads, HVAC diffusers, ceiling millwork, and speaker locations all land on the same drawing. A designer who doesn't work in the RCP alongside the architect isn't collaborating in a meaningful way.
What's your process for millwork coordination with the architect? Custom millwork has 14 to 24 week lead times. Millwork elevations need to be drawn during the framing phase so the openings are framed correctly the first time. A designer who specs millwork after framing is complete is adding $20,000 to $60,000 in wall rework to your project.
Who runs the punch list? On a well-run project, the designer and architect co-author the punch list at substantial completion. If the designer says "the architect handles that," they're not actually part of the construction team.
Red flags that suggest a designer doesn't actually work with architects
A few patterns come up on almost every project we take over mid-stream:
They can't or won't share process work when you ask for it. A designer who does real architect coordination should be able to show you — in a consultation, not necessarily on their public website — a set of furniture plans, an RCP, a millwork elevation, or a finish schedule from a completed project. A public portfolio is styled to look beautiful; the coordination work lives behind it. If the answer to "can you walk me through the drawings you produced on that project" is a change of subject, the drawings probably weren't produced.
They describe their process as "we come in after the architect." This is the single most common thing I hear from designers who don't do architect coordination. It's said as if it's a virtue. It isn't.
They don't produce their own construction drawings at all. A designer who works with architects produces their own set — furniture plans, RCPs, millwork elevations, finish schedules, plumbing fixture schedules, tile layouts. If the designer relies entirely on the architect's drawings and only supplies a finish palette and furniture selections, the "collaboration" is a handoff, not a partnership.
How the handoff should actually work
A well-run project has three integrated document sets: the architectural set, the interior design set, and the millwork/casework set. All three are stamped to the same milestone dates — schematic design, design development, construction documents — and the coordination happens at each milestone rather than at the end.
During the pre-construction phase, which runs 3 to 6 months on most full renovations, the interior designer sits in the architectural review meetings and produces plans that overlay the architectural plans. Every wall thickness, every plumbing chase, every framing dimension is negotiated between the two teams before it gets to the general contractor.
During construction, which runs 14 to 24 months on most full-home projects, the designer visits the site on the same cadence as the architect — typically every two weeks — and both parties co-sign every RFI response and every change order. The general contractor should never receive conflicting direction from the designer and the architect.
Substantial completion is co-managed. The punch list is written by both teams. The final walk-through is attended by both teams. The closeout documents include both sets of drawings, both warranty binders, and both sets of vendor contacts.
The right time to hire is now, not later
If you're planning a full renovation, new construction, or combination-of-units project in New York, the Hamptons, or Miami and you've hired an architect but haven't yet hired the interior designer, the money you save on change orders and the time you save on rework will more than cover the design fee. If you haven't hired either yet, hire them the same month.
If you're already in that position and want to talk through how the two teams should coordinate on your project, book a consultation.
Paul De Andrade is the founder and principal designer of Studio Kestrel, a residential interior design practice working across New York City, the Hamptons, and Miami. He has been designing interiors since 2014, founded Studio Kestrel in 2019, and has completed more than 30 full-service projects through the studio since. His work is rooted in organic modern principles, feng shui, and a wellness-led approach to how a home is built around daily life. Studio Kestrel has been featured in Architectural Digest, The Wall Street Journal, Homes & Gardens, Domino, and Hamptons Magazine, among others.
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