Interior Designer in Brooklyn, NY

The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission describes the city's row houses as narrow, three-to-five story residences built more than a century ago, made mostly of brick, stone, terra cotta, and wood. Brooklyn has blocks of them. A Brooklyn parlor floor can be a beautiful room and a hard one to live in.

Think of a row-house floor as a railroad car. Daylight comes in at the two short ends, and every wall in the middle cuts the light off. Our job is to decide which walls a household needs, which can slide, and which can become storage.

Apartments get the same thinking. Several of our Manhattan projects began as conventional two-bedroom layouts, and the approach carries over to Brooklyn co-ops and condos.

Can a narrow brownstone floor feel open without losing its character?

Yes, when the design keeps the original materials and swaps fixed walls for elements that move. Sliding doors, translucent panels, and built-in cabinetry can divide a long floor into usable zones. Exposed brick, old wood, and the tall front windows stay in view, so the house still reads as a 19th-century row house.

Cityzen's interior design service covers layout, built-ins, materials, and furniture

A full interior renovation with Cityzen covers the floor plan, custom built-ins, materials and colors, and furniture, all designed as one piece.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics sums up the general role well: interior designers make indoor spaces functional, safe, and beautiful by working out space needs and choosing essential and decorative items. Our own work leans hard on the architecture of a room. Across our residential interior design projects, the scope has included:

• Open-plan layouts made by removing walls between rooms

• Custom built-in cabinetry, shelving, and window seats

• Furniture that doubles as architecture, such as platforms, bench seating, and bookcases

• Material and color palettes for floors, walls, and cabinetry

• Refinishing existing floors

• Rooms planned around a client's furniture and art

• Smart-glass and translucent partitions

• Interior and exterior work together on some projects

Freedman House in Greenwich shows the furniture-as-architecture idea at full scale. A continuous walnut platform steps up into a built-in corner sofa, backed by a low bookcase that also serves the dining room.

What does an interior designer add that a contractor does not?

An interior designer decides what the contractor will build. That covers where rooms begin and end, how storage works, which materials meet at each corner, and how furniture fits the space. On a Brooklyn renovation, we produce that design and coordinate it with your architect, engineer, and contractor so the design carries through to construction.

Munter Residence shows flexible rooms inside two old row houses

The Munter Residence in Nolita is our clearest example of what a row-house interior can become.

The Munter Residence renovation turned a two-bedroom apartment, formed from two early 20th-century row houses, into a flexible loft for clients who love art, materials, and minimal rooms. The walls came back to their original brick. Former windows onto the light shaft were reopened, so light and views pass from one room to the next.

Rooms open and close as the day changes. Sliding doors and built-in cabinetry define each area. Smart glass at the bath, kitchen, and entry changes between clear and opaque at the touch of a switch, giving privacy only when the owners want it.

Salvaged materials do much of the work. Reclaimed subway tile runs from the kitchen into the bath. Stone wraps the cabinetry and continues into the sills and shelving, and reclaimed white oak floors sit below an exposed wood beam.

The owners live in Europe. S. Russell wrote, "You have designed a little jewel that is far beyond what we could have imagined." Other clients describe our work in their own words on the Cityzen testimonials page.

A Brooklyn row house shares the Munter bones: brick party walls, wood, and windows at the ends.

Talk through your row house with Azin

A Cityzen project in Brooklyn runs from consultation to finished rooms

Every Brooklyn project starts with a confidential consultation about your household, your building, and what you want to change.

From there, our work follows the three ideas in our design approach. Context comes first, meaning how you live, what you value, and the character of the house. Next comes flexibility, with rooms and built-ins that adapt and serve more than one purpose. The third idea is discovery, where we push clients to picture something past the usual answer.

An illustrative case shows how those ideas play out. A Brooklyn couple both work from home on a parlor floor with a front living room and a closed back room. The design might replace the dividing wall with a translucent sliding panel, so the back room works as a quiet office by day and opens to the living room at night. Built-in shelving along the party wall holds files and books.

Past clients point to how renovations are managed. One I-Beam Design client wrote that a renovation finished on time and on budget. Another described a project that grew larger and longer than planned and was handled with diligence.

Do I have to move out during a Brooklyn interior renovation?

The answer depends on which rooms the work touches, and we talk it through at the consultation. A full renovation of a row house or apartment reaches kitchens, baths, and floors, which makes staying at home hard for part of the work. A smaller scope can sometimes run in phases while you stay. Your contractor sets the final schedule.

Azin Valy leads every Cityzen design

Azin Valy, the founder of Cityzen Designs, leads the design on every project.

Azin Valy graduated from The Cooper Union School of Architecture and co-founded I-Beam Design, an award-winning architecture firm in New York. Her work over more than two decades has ranged from 250,000 sf of international headquarters down to 250 sf of refugee housing.

She has served as a guest critic at Parsons School of Design, Pratt Institute, Columbia University, and City College of NY, among other schools. Her projects have appeared in the New York Times, Dwell, and Domino, listed on our press and publications page.

In 2017 the American Architecture Prize shortlisted the studio for Firm of the Year in Residential Interiors, and our awards page lists the full record back to a 2007 Interior Design Magazine Future Furniture Competition win.

Commercial and hospitality interior design in Brooklyn

Brooklyn restaurants, shops, and offices can work with Cityzen Designs, which designs commercial and hospitality interiors alongside homes.

Hospitality is a long thread in the portfolio. Our restaurant and bar interiors include the Macao Trading Co. restaurant in Tribeca, a 4,000 sq ft I-Beam Design project with an 82-seat dining room under a mezzanine. Salvaged teak lattice screens divide the room into smaller zones, and custom light fixtures reuse antique bicycles, boats, and rickshaws.

Our office and showroom interiors include the 7,000 sq ft Andrew Davidson & Co. offices, which I-Beam Design, the practice Azin Valy co-founded, planned around a circular conference room inside Louis Sullivan's Bayard-Condict Building. Inc. and Architizer named the space one of the World's Coolest Offices in 2011.

The Andrew Davidson reception desk turns around one of Sullivan's original round columns, the same way a Brooklyn row house renovation keeps its old brick in view.

Key Takeaways

• Park Slope Historic District Extension II has 292 buildings, mostly single-family row houses and flats from the mid-1800s to the early 1900s.

• Cityzen's service covers layout, built-in cabinetry, materials, color, and furniture as one design.

• Sliding doors, translucent panels, and smart glass let a narrow floor open and close.

• The Munter Residence combined two early 20th-century row houses, original brick, and reclaimed oak and tile.

• A registered architect or licensed engineer prepares permit drawings, and we coordinate with them and your contractor.

Ready to plan the rooms your Brooklyn home is missing? Share the building, the floor plan, and how you live.

Plan your Brooklyn interior renovation