Ren Marlowe
Principal · Interiors
Trained at RISD, then eight years on a Basel team before the winters called him back. Ren draws the first plan of every project by hand, usually twice, usually before anyone has asked for it.
Interior architecture · Chicago
We draw rooms people never want to leave.
A studio for houses with history and apartments with potential. Eight projects a year, drawn by hand.
Drag to turn the room
Light first.
Then walls.
Then everything else.
We start where the sun comes in and work outward from there. It is a slower way to begin, and it saves a year of regret.
Iris Ash
Principal · Structure
Structures first: five years in a tower practice before she tired of buildings you could not touch. Iris is the one who tells you which wall can go, and which one is quietly holding up your bedroom.
Our studio is a second-floor room on Wabash with north light and too many drawings pinned to the wall. We do not have a house style. We have a way of working, and it tends to produce rooms that look like the people standing in them.
“A studio allergic to the unnecessary.”
Three of the eight we take on each year.
Every drawing below is drawn, not rendered — which is also how you will receive them.
Project 01 — 2024
The Garnet House
A 1908 greystone with good bones and eleven doors too many. We took out four walls, kept the garnet tile in the entry because it was the best thing in the building, and gave the stair back its window.
- Year
- 2024
- City
- Chicago, Illinois
- Area
- 4,100 sq ft
- Lime plaster
- Rift walnut
- Garnet tile
- Unlacquered brass
Project 02 — 2023
Loft on Pearl
Cast iron, twelve-foot windows, and nowhere to sleep. We built the two private rooms as furniture — freestanding oak boxes holding nothing up — so the shell stayed one long room with the light intact.
- Year
- 2023
- City
- Brooklyn, New York
- Area
- 2,350 sq ft
- Smoked oak
- Blackened steel
- Bouclé
- Chalk
Project 03 — 2025
A Kitchen for Winter Light
North-facing, and dark from November to March. We moved the sink under the only good window, lined the upper wall in pale plaster to pass the light along, and put nothing shiny anywhere near it.
- Year
- 2025
- City
- Minneapolis, Minnesota
- Area
- 480 sq ft
- Pale plaster
- Basalt
- Warm ash
- Patinated brass
A short list we keep coming back to.
Choose one and the room beside it takes that material on. Every one of them gets better with use, which is the whole test.
Six materials · arrow keys work too
Four phases, in this order, every time.
The first one is the one people are surprised by. Below is the ground floor of the Garnet House, drawn the way you would receive it.
Garnet House · ground floor · measured by hand, twice
1,020 sq ft drawn
-
I
Listen
We spend the first meeting mostly quiet. How you cook, who visits, which room you avoid in February, what you would save if the house caught fire. Plans come later. None of them work without this.
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II
Measure
We measure the whole place ourselves, by hand, twice. Old buildings lie. A half-inch at the door becomes three inches at the window, and three inches is the difference between a cabinet that fits and a cabinet that is scribed for a year.
-
III
Draw
You get drawings, not renderings. Plans, sections and elevations at a scale you can read across a table, with a pencil in your hand. Then we change them. Then we change them again, for as long as it takes.
-
IV
Build
We stay through the build. On site weekly, on the phone with the trades daily, and in the room the day the last coat goes on — because that is the day the small wrong things become permanent.
Tell us about the room.
We read and answer every note ourselves, which is why it takes a day or two.
We take on eight projects a year. Two of the eight are usually one difficult room, and those are often the best ones.
If the building is older than you are, say so — that is the work we like most.
Marlowe & Ash
411 S. Wabash Avenue, Studio 2R
Chicago, Illinois 60605
Dear Ren and Iris,
Thank you. The note is with us. Ren or Iris will write back within two working days — from a real address, with a real question.