Szawrot Design is an interior design studio led by Dr Elżbieta Szabat-Wywrot. It specialises in historic and modernist interiors, as well as projects in which the architecture of the building genuinely informs the decisions being made.
The studio combines design practice with historical and conservation expertise. This makes it possible to recognise the value of existing elements, understand successive alterations to an interior and introduce new solutions without obscuring its character.
Studio founder
She studied Interior Architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź and Interdisciplinary Humanities at the University of Warsaw. She also received her doctorate in history there and worked in academic research for several years.
She complemented her design and historical background with postgraduate studies in wood conservation at the Warsaw University of Life Sciences and in the conservation of historic architecture at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń.
This combination of artistic, humanistic and conservation training informs the way projects are approached: from understanding the history and structure of an interior to making contemporary functional, material and aesthetic decisions.
Approach
We begin by examining what is already there: the structure of the interior, its surviving elements and traces of earlier alterations. We assess what has genuine value, what can be repaired or supplemented, and where change is necessary.
We do not pursue reconstruction at any cost, nor do we attempt to style an interior as though it belonged to an earlier period. New interventions should be recognisably contemporary, carefully resolved in material terms and remain in a considered relationship with the architecture of the building.
For more complex projects, we collaborate with conservation specialists, building-services designers, restorers, art historians and craftspeople specialising in traditional materials and techniques.
