SIGNATURE STYLE: "Comfort, with a modern edge."
EVERY ROOM WE DESIGN HAS: "Things that age well."
NO ROOM WE DESIGN HAS: "Guns."
FAVORITE COLORS OF THE MOMENT: "Curry, tangerine, rosemary and Key lime pie."
WORDS TO DESIGN BY: "Make places, not just spaces."
BEFORE ARCHITECTS RACHEL SCHADE and Kiki Bolender will take on a new project, they ask prospective clients that deal-making-or-breaking question: "When do you need it?"
"In general, people don't realize how long the process takes," says Bolender,
who joined forces with Schade, a Penn architecture graduate, in '96. The two women are hands-on on all of their 10 to 15 current projects, from the documentation and designing stages right through construction and interiors. With 70 percent of their business residential, they've carved out a niche for themselves as "one-stop" shopping when it comes to design. "In residential, the line is pretty blurry between architecture and interiors," says Schade. "Even when you're designing the shell of a building, the window treatments come into consideration. More and more, we find we're doing both." To get into their clients' heads, they've become good listeners, probing to discover likes and dislikes in terms of colors, textures, patterns and materials. "We ask
