Reclaiming Style: Using Salvaged Materials to Create an Elegant Home

Adam Hills and Maria Speake, the partners behind architectural salvage and design company Retrouvius (retrouvius.com), combine their salvage work with one of the most sought-after interior design practices in Britain.

“The interior-design side of this architectural-reclamation and vintage-furniture business is headed up by the delightful and deeply artistic Maria Speake. Her use of materials—many of them reclaimed—and colour ensure her projects always sing with modernity.” House & Garden

Reclaiming Style goes with them behind the scenes, from the demolition site to the warehouse to the process of designing beautiful interiors using reclaimed materials. Charted over 12 locations, ranging from a 17th-century cottage to a converted barn to a 1970s towerblock apartment, the company’s unique style goes far beyond a mere commitment to salvage and sustainable design and offers an inspiring new vision for sophisticated, thoughtfully constructed living spaces.

Maria Speake (House & Garden's Interior Designer of the Year 2019) and Adam Hills met while studying architecture in Glasgow. They moved to London in 1997 and opened the Retrouvius warehouse on a dilapidated stretch of London's Harrow Road. Lovers of salvaged materials soon began to beat a path to their door, and this led to the establishment of their design practice, which refurbishes domestic interiors using salvaged materials to entirely unique effect.