The School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s (SAIC) emphasis on interdisciplinary practice makes it well situated to produce talented interior designers. Samantha Soo (BIA 2008) and Martha Mulholland (BFA 2008) took their SAIC educations and created internationally admired design practices from the ground up. Each of their bodies of work demonstrates something central to the SAIC ethos: that the strongest creative practices are rarely built in a straight line. They emerge through experimentation, obsession, and the willingness to see design not just as aesthetics, but as a way of understanding how people live.

Samantha Soo’s interiors exemplify the power of restraint.

There’s texture everywhere—raw stone, hand-applied plaster, warm wood—but it’s never excessive. Her spaces are rich without becoming loud, and color arrives in earthy tonal shifts. Interiors designed by Soo feel calm and contemplative, seeming to invite you in.

“We aim to create immersive, multi-sensory experiences that feel both sophisticated and deeply personal,” Soo said.

Soo founded her Hong Kong–based studio after studying at SAIC and later completing a master’s degree in interior design. But rather than developing a singular look, she became interested in building spaces around emotional resonance and cultural specificity.

“We approach every project with an inquisitive mind, celebrating the cultural context and unique vision of our clients,” she said.

Soo mostly works with private individuals to craft “bespoke, highly tailored luxury residential spaces.” Her designs balance sophistication and comfort, creating spaces that look stunning but feel livable. 

That flexibility is partly a product of Hong Kong itself. Soo described the city as a place of constant contrast: urban but rooted in nature, East meeting West, efficient but intimate. Designing there taught her how to create tranquility within limitation.

That philosophy has earned Soo considerable international recognition. Her studio has received multiple Asia Pacific Property Awards and Luxury Lifestyle Awards, earned a Silver Award at the Hong Kong Design Awards, and been recognized by both Perspective’s 40 Under 40 and Prestige’s 40 Under 40 campaigns. Her work has appeared in publications including Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Tatler Homes, and Home Journal.

Interdisciplinary practice at SAIC definitely shaped the way Soo thinks about interiors. She describes setting up spaces like a true visual artist with a clear sense of direction. “Instead of just seeing a room as a place to put furniture, I learned to see it as a mix of art, light, and feeling,” Soo said.

That mindset still guides her practice. Her projects feel less like exercises in trend forecasting and more like carefully composed emotional environments. Materials are selected not just for beauty, but for the way they age, absorb light, or evoke memory.

For students hoping to pursue interior architecture or spatial design, Soo said it’s important to balance artistic experimentation with practical knowledge.

“Having a unique voice is what gets you noticed,” she said, “but understanding the standard stuff —like budgets, building codes, and how things are actually constructed—is the core foundation of our career.”

Martha Mulholland’s rooms show an appreciation of objects and the stories they carry. She approaches each space individually, considering the design of a personal space an almost sacred responsibility.

“I’m choosing a mirror that will hang over their bathroom sink, and they'll grow old in that mirror, potentially. Like, they'll sit in this chair and get the best news and the worst news of their lives. They'll share this dining table with friends and family,” she said. She sees spaces as intimate, personal, and beautiful.

Her clients, she explained, tend to share a love of history, craftsmanship, and individuality.

Mulholland works with diverse clients who have many different kinds of homes, and she caters her designs for everyone’s individual tastes. “My clients [...] are creatively curious and share an appreciation for eclecticism, craft, and history,” Mulholland said. “They value my narrative-driven approach to interior design.” 

Mulholland did not initially plan to become an interior designer at all. She arrived at SAIC intending to study figurative painting before gradually drifting across disciplines into fibers, art history, decorative arts, and historic preservation. The result was less a traditional BFA education than what she describes as a “smorgasbord” of SAIC’s offerings.

That approach ultimately became foundational to the way she sees interiors now. “SAIC was such an important place for me,” she said. “My education there still shows up in the way I look at rooms and objects every day. That exposure to new ideas and diverse subjects instilled an insatiable curiosity in me that made me look at the world differently.”

Growing up in Kentucky, Mulholland spent time wandering through old horse farms and historic homes while her dad worked as a real estate agent. She was enamored with the homes he was trying to sell.

“He'd deposit me in these houses and take his clients off in the back acreage, and I would just wander through these homes in this kind of voyeuristic way and absorb the way other people lived,” she said. “I was so fascinated with objects and with colors and with the way that rooms float into each other. I just loved that.”

Chicago further sharpened her focus on spaces and objects. Mulholland talks about the city with the kind of affection usually reserved for old friends. She recalls wandering neighborhoods, studying architectural details, and becoming obsessed with the way immigrant craftsmanship shaped even modest apartment buildings.

“Chicago showed me that we can all live around beauty. You don’t have to be rich to have this,” she said. “Chicago has a lot of architectural heritage.”

After graduating during the 2008 recession, Mulholland worked in fashion, visual merchandising, styling, auction houses, and home retail before gradually finding her way into interiors. The path was nonlinear, but in retrospect, every phase feels connected by a single throughline: an obsession with objects and the stories they tell.

“With antiques, I wonder, ‘How did this get here? And who made it?’,” she said. “Somebody was trying to communicate with this thing that is very real now. And so you're communicating with someone through time, which I think is so powerful.”

That fascination with history and material culture has earned Mulholland widespread recognition. Her work has been featured in Architectural Digest, Vogue, Elle Decor, House Beautiful, House & Garden, and the New York Times, among many other publications. Her Los Angeles–based practice has become known for creating layered interiors that feel both historically informed and deeply personal.

For Mulholland, curiosity remains the essential quality for anyone hoping to build a creative career. Well, curiosity and business sense.

“You have to be hungry and malleable,” she said. “Put yourself in the environment where you will be exposed to information, people, different types of ways to work within the design space. That’s how you get your foot in the door.”