Interior Designers & Architectural Designers in Oxford
Studio November is an interior design and architectural studio based in Oxford, working on homes across the city and the surrounding county. We design and deliver complete renovations of North Oxford Victorian villas, Georgian townhouses, terraced houses in Jericho and Osney, listed buildings and contemporary homes — combining interior design and architectural design within one studio. Founded by Samin Sahabi and Christopher Cooke, with backgrounds at London houses including Linley and Thorp, we bring that level of detail home to Oxford: from first sketch and planning drawings through joinery, lighting and finishes to the final styled room.
Interior Design For Oxford Homes
Oxford's houses are particular. The Victorian and Edwardian villas of North Oxford were built generously but organised for a different century — kitchens in the wrong place, service stairs, cellular rooms that resist family life. The city's terraces in Jericho, Osney and East Oxford are full of charm and short on width, where every centimetre of a layout has to work. And its Georgian townhouses and college-adjacent listed buildings carry fabric that deserves better than an off-the-shelf renovation.
Our approach starts with the architecture. Because we design buildings as well as interiors, we can reorganise a plan rather than decorate around its problems — moving a bathroom to rescue a bedroom floor, opening a ground floor without losing the room structure that gives a period house its rhythm, designing joinery that turns awkward alcoves and half-landings into the most useful storage in the house. Then the interior scheme is built on top of a plan that actually works: finishes, lighting, fabrics and furniture chosen to sit naturally against the building's age and character. The result is a home that lives like a contemporary house and still feels like an Oxford one.
Villages and Areas we cover
We work across the whole city:
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North Oxford
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Summertown
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Jericho
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Walton Manor
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Osney and West Oxford
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Iffley
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Iffley Fields
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Headington
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Wolvercote
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Grandpont and East Oxford.
Beyond the ring road, our projects extend across Oxfordshire, Woodstock, Charlbury, Abingdon, Wallingford, Henley and the villages between, and into the Cotswolds and London.
Being based in the city means we're on site often, we know the local builders, joiners and craftspeople worth knowing, and we understand how Oxford's planning department actually behaves which is worth more than any mood board.
Listed buildings and conservation areas in Oxford
Much of residential Oxford sits inside a conservation area, the city has more than a dozen, covering North Oxford, Jericho, Osney, Iffley and beyond, and a significant share of its period stock is listed. That shapes what a renovation involves: internal alterations to listed houses need Listed Building Consent, external changes in conservation areas are constrained, and Oxford City Council applies its policies with real scrutiny. This is where the studio's architectural grounding matters. We prepare the drawings, heritage statements and specifications that applications require, and we design proposals conservation officers can support, clear about what is historic fabric to be kept and what is later alteration that can be improved. With nineteen years of experience across period and listed properties, we know what will be approved, what will be resisted, and how to design something better than the compromise you were braced for.
