Ninety minutes
on your floor plan.
Send us the Grundriss before we speak. We read it, mark it up, and spend an hour and a half working through the layout with you on video, in English. You leave knowing whether your idea works and why it works, with the reasoning in writing within 48 hours.
Layout decisions get made
long before anyone draws.
By the time a plan reaches a designer, the wall has usually already been priced, the kitchen already quoted at the Küchenstudio, and the sofa already ordered. The expensive mistakes happen in the six weeks before that, when the decision is still a conversation at the kitchen table.
The Layout Clinic is a paid session for that stage. Not a sales call, not a free chat about our packages. Ninety minutes with a designer, on your plan, so you commit to the right layout rather than the first one.
Opening up a closed kitchen
The separate Küche is the most common request we get. You want one room, but you are not sure what the kitchen loses in storage, or whether the counter you have drawn leaves room to pass behind someone at the hob.
Buying, or just bought
You need to know whether the flat does what you need before you sign, or before the offer goes in. Bring the agent's Grundriss, approximate as it usually is.
Renovating an Altbau
High ceilings, deep reveals, stucco worth keeping and a Flur that eats square metres. The proportions that make these flats beautiful are also what make the layout awkward.
Renting, and unable to alter
No walls coming down, nothing screwed into anything. Layout is still the lever, and freestanding storage, zoning and lighting decide whether the flat works.
The plan is read before
the call, not during it.
Most consultations spend the first twenty minutes explaining the room. Sending the plan in advance removes that, and it is why ninety minutes is enough to get somewhere. Below is roughly what a plan looks like by the end of a session.
A Berlin Altbau, roughly 90 square metres. Opening the Küche into the Wohnzimmer is the most common request we get. Taking the whole wall out looks better on a plan and is usually worse to cook in, so what is drawn here is a 2550 mm opening with a short nib kept at each end, which holds the two most useful positions in the kitchen and still reads as one room.
You send what you have
An architect's drawing, the agent's Grundriss, or a sketch with measurements on it. German plans are no problem, we read them every week. If you have neither, we send you a short list of what to measure and how.
We work through the options
Screen shared, plan marked up live, in English. We test at least two layout directions against how you actually use the space, and we say plainly which one we would take and why. You will hear the drawbacks of each, not only the case for one.
You get it in writing
A written summary within 48 hours: the layouts we discussed, the recommended direction, and the dimensions and constraints that decide it. In English, in German, or in both, provided you ask during the session. Written so you can forward it straight to an architect, a Küchenstudio or a partner who was not on the call.
Introductory rate, 110 EUR. We are running the first bookings at an introductory price while the service settles. Both decision makers are welcome on the call at no extra cost, and we would rather they were.
Often the answer is
that you were right.
Worth saying plainly, because people expect a consultation to hand them an idea they had not thought of. Sometimes it does. More often you already have the right instinct and what you are missing is the reasoning behind it, and the confidence to spend money on it.
There are three honest ways a session ends.
| Your layout works | We tell you so, and more importantly we tell you why: the clearances it holds, the sightlines it keeps, the mistakes it happens to avoid. You stop second-guessing and start pricing the work. That reasoning goes in the summary, which is what you hand to whoever needs convincing. |
| Your layout works, with two or three changes | The most common outcome. The shape of the idea is right and something specific is off, usually a walkway, a door swing or a run of units that is 300 mm short. Small corrections, made before anything is ordered. |
| Your layout does not work | Rare, but it happens, and we would rather say it in week one than have you find out when the kitchen is delivered. We then spend the rest of the session on what does work, so you leave with a direction rather than a problem. |
The outcome nobody wants is a fourth one: going ahead without knowing which of the three you were in. That is the thing this session removes, and it is worth the fee even when the answer is that your plan was sound all along.
This is a conversation,
not a set of drawings.
Worth being straight about the boundary, because the wrong service is a waste of your money and our time.
| You want to test whether a layout works before committing to it | The Layout Clinic. Ninety minutes and a written summary is usually all it takes to settle the question. |
| You need drawn plans an architect or Küchenstudio can work from | Our space planning service, which produces annotated technical plans and CAD, scoped against your room. |
| You need help with colour, window treatments or finishing a room | Book hourly consultancy instead, which is sold by the hour and can be split across rooms. |
| You want the room designed and specified end to end | Start with an interior design package. The layout work is built into it, so you would not need this session first. |
| You need to know whether a wall can safely come down | That is a Statiker's answer, not ours. We work out what the layout gains or loses either way, and we can introduce a structural engineer we trust if you do not have one. |
What people ask
before booking.
Do I need to speak German, or do you?
The session is in English. Your plan can be entirely in German, which is what most of them are, and that is no obstacle at all. If it helps, we also work with clients across Europe from a specifically English-speaking practice, which is how most people find us in the first place.
The written summary afterwards can be in English, in German, or in both. Please ask during the session rather than after it, because the summary is written straight from the notes taken on the call.
I do not have a proper Grundriss. Can I still book?
Yes. A hand sketch with real measurements on it works perfectly well, and the agent's plan is fine as a starting point although the dimensions on those are often approximate. When you book we send a short guide to what to measure, which takes most people about half an hour with a tape.
Will you tell me if the wall is load bearing?
No, and you should be wary of anyone who does from a plan. Studio Akiva is an interior design studio, not a structural practice. What we can do is show you what the room gains and loses in each scenario, so you know whether the question is worth paying a Statiker to answer. Worth knowing that in a flat the structural question is only half of it: removing a wall in an owned apartment usually also needs the agreement of the Eigentümergemeinschaft, and in a rented one the landlord's written consent.
We are renting. Is this still worth it?
Often more so. When nothing can be altered, the layout is the only lever you have, and it is the one most people never think to pull. Freestanding storage, where the sofa faces, how the Flur is used and where the light sits will change how a flat works far more than people expect.
Do I get drawings afterwards?
You get a written summary with the recommended layout described in detail, including the dimensions that drive it, plus any plan we marked up on screen during the call. You do not get scaled technical drawings. Those are the space planning service, and if you want them afterwards we already know the room.
What if you just agree with the layout I already had?
Then you have paid ninety minutes to stop wondering, which is usually the cheapest part of the whole project. You will not simply be told yes. You will be told which parts of your thinking hold up and why, where the plan is close to a limit it should not cross, and what would break it if you changed your mind later. Confirming a sound instinct, with the reasoning written down, is a real outcome and we would rather you expected it than felt short-changed by it.
Can we do this at the flat instead?
The clinic is remote by video. Site visits are available but they are charged separately as their own fee, and they are subject to location and availability, most workable in cities such as Berlin, Munich and Madrid.
Can my partner join the call?
Please bring them. Layout decisions stall when one person hears the reasoning and has to relay it second hand, and a decision two people reach together tends to stay made.
Your architect or Handwerker is a different matter. The session runs in English, and anyone who would rather work in German is poorly served by sitting through ninety minutes in a second language. They are better off with the written summary afterwards, which you can pass on and which they can read at their own pace. Ask us on the call and we will write that summary in German.
Send the plan. We will have
read it before we speak.
Book your session below, then send us the Grundriss. We come back within one working day with times that suit you, including evenings. Studio Akiva is an award-winning interior design studio working with clients across Europe, and a twelve-time Houzz award winner, with designers resident in Germany, Spain and France.
Book a session See the full space planning servicePayment is handled securely by Stripe, in euros and including USt. Straight after paying you will be asked to send your Grundriss, which is what lets us schedule the call and read the flat before we speak. Where a designer local to your market exists, we will match you with them.