On working at every scale

When we tell people Blueline works on everything from single-room fit-outs to ground-up houses, we sometimes get the polite suggestion that we should specialize. The thinking is reasonable. Most studios do one thing well. A focused practice attracts focused clients.

But after a decade of doing it the other way, we've come to believe the opposite.

Cross-pollination, not competition

A renovation teaches you what a new building forgets. An interior teaches you what an exterior cannot. A ground-up house teaches you what a small commission has to compress. The skills don't compete — they cross-pollinate.

The kitchen becomes a small house. The bathroom becomes a small kitchen.

When we're designing a new home, we draw on what we've learned from renovating old ones: which rooms get used, which corners are wasted, where families actually gather. When we're designing a small interior, we approach it with the structural rigor of a whole building.

What surprise teaches

The cross-pollination shows up in the work in small ways. We're more careful with sightlines because we've designed three-story stairs. We're more precise with joinery because we've fitted out apartments where joinery was the entire project. We're more comfortable with permits because we've handled them at every scale of complexity.

There is also a quieter reason. A studio that takes on only one kind of work gets very good at it, but rarely surprised by it. Working at every scale keeps the surprise. Each new commission asks something we haven't been asked before.

That's why we keep doing it this way.