Commercial Interior Design

We design offices, retail spaces, and venues that work inside the buildings San Diego already has.

Built For The People Who Work There, And The Ones That Walk In

We design the spaces a business operates out of. Offices, workspaces, retail floors, and event spaces across San Diego and Southern California, planned around how a company operates rather than around a floor plan inherited from the last tenant. A commercial interior carries two jobs at once: it has to make the daily work easier for the people inside of it, and it has to introduce the business to a visitor before anyone says a word.

Much of our commercial work happens inside buildings that were built for something else. A historic shell, a warehouse bay, a storefront with 1920s bones. We measure what is actually standing before we plan against it, because structure, ceiling height, and mechanical routing decide more about a commercial interior than any concept board does. Finishes get specified for commercial traffic and commercial cleaning. The built-in pieces that carry the identity are drawn to fit the room, and built by our in-house fabrication team.

Read our journal on designing retail that sells →

White oak service counter and chalkboard menu boards at the Fox Point Farms market in Encinitas

Refrigerated produce case below fresh organic produce signage in the Fox Point Farms market hall

Planted archway framing timber communal tables in the event space at Flora The Venue

Dichroic film eye emblem graphic applied to the retail window at Gypsy feather in Encinitas

Graphic vinyl in a dicrhoic film running across the full storefront glazing at Gypsy Feather in Encinitas

Geometric line window graphics across full height glazing behind the retail counter at the Grotto in San Diego

Angular white welcome desk and timber retail wall under exposed trusses at the Grotto in San Diego

Angled green and orange wall mural graphic wrapping a locker bay and stair landing at the Grotto in San Diego

Open steel and timber millwork shelving stocked with plants and goods at Wordsmith in San Diego

Illuminated signage and hanging greenery above the display cases at Hikei dispensary in San Diego

Custom reception desk against a vertical cedar wall in the Perfect Bar office lobby

Dimensional wayfinding signage at McCarthy offices with brass lettering on a perforated red field mounted to a while oak wall

Baristas at a charred timber coffee counter with brewing equipment and cup shelving

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Our Commercial Design Services

Detail of a custom signage installation made of brass rods

Site plan marketing zones to activate, with lounge, landscape, and customer areas keyed to a legend

Elevation drawings on paper and tablet beside green textile and dark stone finish samples

Timber clad portal framing a glass walled conference room in a San Diego office interior

Mature olive tree planted beneath a glazed atrium roof in the event space at Flora The Venue

Interior designer from Tecture Studio placing books and ceramics on suspended wooden shelves during a furniture install

Illuminated floor number on a brass panel in a corridor with a wood slat ceiling system

Marking up a plan set on a tablet during construction administration

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Every commercial project has a business case behind it, and that is where we start. Programming covers headcount, hours, how staff and customers move through a day, growth plans, budget, and the date you need to be operating, Then we walk the space with the lease in hand, confirming dimensions, existing conditions, and what the landlord's work letter will and will not allow. That is what sets the boundaries for everything drawn afterward.

This is where the idea gets specific. Each direction we put forward is a complete proposition, with its own space plan, palette, materials, lighting character, and its own answer for how the brand shows up in reality. 3D renderings run alongside them, so you are choosing between rooms you can see rather than dimensions you have to imagine. Once a direction is signed off, it carries into documentation.

An office has to work for the people in it eight hours at a time. We plan arrival and reception, open work areas, private offices, conference and huddle rooms, break rooms, and the circulation between them, with daylight, acoustics, and power and data settled before the layout is locked rather than patched in around it. The design is built to absorb a team that grows or reorganizes without triggering another renovation.

A customer decides what to look at within a few steps of walking through the door, and the design of the room makes that decision for them. We design storefronts and entries, display and fixture systems, counters and point of sale, and the flexible roms businesses rent out or use for events. Merchandising, sightlines, and lighting are drawn together, so a customer's eye lands where the business needs it to and the room still reads well when it's empty.

In a commercial space, the built-ins are what people touch and what wears out first. We design reception desks, conference tables, display and shelving systems, casework, counters, partitions, lighting, and feature walls to the dimensions of the room they are going into. Because the fabrication happens in-house, the people who draw a piece are the same people who price it, build it, and install it, which is why a detail survives the trip from the drawing to the floor.

Commercial furniture gets used harder than it looks like it will. We source and budget the package, then stay on it through purchase orders, tracking, quality control, storage, and installation, with everything specified to survive contract-grade wear and whatever your cleaning crew uses on it. Lead times are scheduled against your occupancy dae, and the long-lead itens get flagged while they are still a choice rather than a problem.

Nobody should have to ask where the elevator is, or guess whose office they just walked into. We design identity applications, exterior and lobby signage, directories, room and floor identification, wall graphics, and nurals, down to the tactile brand pieces people meet up close. Planned with the drawings rather than applied afterward, signage lands on surfaces that were built to recieve it, which costs less and looks like it was always meant to be there.

Commercial work runs on a permit clock and a lease clock at the same time. The drawing set is complete enough to bid, permit, and build from without leaving a decision for the field to make on the fly, because on a tenant improvement each of those tends to arrive later as a change order. Through construction administration we stay in it: contractor and building management coordination, submittals, RFIs, field conditions as they surface, and punch. On San Diego and Southern California projects, we are on site for it.

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Shops, Offices, And Venues Across San Diego

Art of Play

Little Italy, San Diego
A magic and game shop inside a coffee warehouse, with custom shelving and a bespoke card deck display wall.

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Flora The Venue

La Jolla, San Diego
A hidden oasis event space behind fogged glass, built around a preserved olive tree and moveable planted partitions.

Uni Office Building

San Diego, California
A once forgotten building reworked into daylit workspaces, with the original wood and concrete left in view.

FAQ

We design offices and workplaces, retail stores, event and venue spaces, and the lobbies, common areas, and shared floors inside commercial and mixed-use buildings. Some of it is a single room, some of it is a whole building. In every case there is a business underneath it that has to keep operating in that space every day.
Often! Uni Office Building was a forgotten structure reworked into bright open workspaces with its original wood and concrete left visible. Art of Play sits inside a Little Italy coffee warehouse. Flora occupies a building with 1920s origins. Structure, ceiling height, and mechanical routing put hard limits on an older building, and working inside those limits is usually what makes the result specific to the place instead of interchangeable.
As much or as little as the project needs. A full engagement runs programming, concept and schematic design, design development, 3D renderings, construction documents, construction administration, FF&E procurement, environmental branding and wayfinding, and custom millwork design. It can also be a piece of that, shaped around your lease terms, the consultants already on the job, and the date you have to be occupying the space.
Both, and budget decides it as often as design does. Reception desks, conference tables, display and shelving systems, counters, and feature walls are the pieces most likely to be drawn here and built by our in-house fabrication team, because they have to land on an exact dimension or carry the brand, Everything else comes from our trusted vendors that we have been buying from for years.
San Diego is our home. Most of our commercial work sits inside the county, in and around downtown, Little Italy, North Park, La Jolla, Sorrento Valley, and up through North County to Encinitas. We work throughout Southern California and take projects further out when they are the right fit, planning the schedule around the travel instead of pretending it is not a factor.