Interior architect in Paris.

Interior architecture, on a different footing.

The scenario is familiar to anyone who has renovated in Paris: a talented interior architect draws a seductive project, then come the contractors' quotes — and with them the painful arbitrations, the trimmed intentions, the details "simplified" for want of budget or savoir-faire. The designer is not at fault: they are structurally separated from those who build. You sign one contract with them, then others with each firm, and the final result is no one's entire responsibility.

W.A.R.D has taken the opposite stance. Our design team — DPLG and HMONP architects, interior architects, designers and decorators — works within a general contractor that executes what it designs. Every perspective drawn has been validated by those who will build it; every material specified has been priced before being presented; every millwork detail has an identified artisan to make it. That is the whole difference between a beautiful project and a delivered one. To understand in depth what this arrangement changes, our comparison sets out the two logics: general contractor or architect + separate firms?

What being backed by a works structure changes

• A budget that holds. Pricing is built at the same time as the drawings, line by line. No project redrawn after the quotes come in: the price presented is the price committed.
• Feasibility checked in real time. Moving a kitchen, opening a wall, fitting a dressing room into a canted corner: every intention is immediately confronted with the realities of the structure, the services and the co-ownership.
• A single responsible party. If a delivered detail does not match the plan, you never have to adjudicate between designer and contractor: the same house drew and built, and answers for it — under €5,000,000 ten-year warranty insurance.
• Committed deadlines. The design schedule and the works schedule form a single contractual calendar, held by the coordination of all trades.

Our design process.

Listening first. A successful interior tells the story of those who live in it, not of those who drew it. The first phase is made of questions: how do you live, entertain, work at home; what is missing from your current home; which materials, which light, which places move you. This phase looks simple; it nonetheless decides everything that follows, and we refuse to rush it. Then the sketch: layout plans, a possible redistribution of the volumes, principles of circulation and light — several scenarios, discussed and refined with you. The detailed design: choice of materials and finishes, layout drawings, electrical and lighting plans, the design of the custom millwork, perspectives. And in parallel, continuously, the pricing: every option is presented with its cost, so that your decisions are made in full knowledge of the facts — never at the last minute. At signature, the design, the price and the deadline form one and the same contractual commitment.

Materials and custom millwork.

The level of an interior is decided in what cannot be bought from a catalogue: a full-height bookcase hugging an old wall that is never perfectly straight, a kitchen drawn to the millimetre for an atypical volume, a headboard integrating bedside tables and lighting, a dressing room exploiting every last corner of an attic bedroom. Our interior architects draw these pieces, and our artisans — joiners, millworkers, marble masons — make and install them. Marble, oak, brass, natural stone, lacquers: working with noble materials is part of the house culture, as witnessed by Le Vénitien, 240 m² rethought as a family cocoon, the heritage restoration of Le Trocadéro and its 227 m² of Haussmann interiors, or the duplex of Le Marquis in Versailles.

Who this approach is for.

For owners renovating in full: the natural use case — design and works advance together, from sketch to handover of the keys, with a single point of contact. For buyers in the course of a purchase: the design phase can begin during the sale agreement, so that the works start the day you get the keys. For professionals — boutiques, offices, practices — for whom the image of the premises is a working tool and the deadline a commercial constraint. And for clients already accompanied by a designer: if you have your own interior architect, we act as the execution structure — pricing, coordination of the trades and delivery to the rules of the art, under our ten-year warranty.

Observed ranges for the works run from €500 to €900 per m² for a refresh, €1,200 to €1,800 per m² for a careful full renovation, and €2,000 to €3,500 per m² for the high end — an observed average of around €1,500 per m², design included in the overall contract. Browse our projects to judge the level of finish, then describe your project to us: an answer within 48 hours.