Loire Design Lab - Chapter 11: A French Renovation with a Bigger Purpose

Important note: Join our virtual event on June 10th at 4pm CET/9am CT to hear more about what Loire Design Lab is all about! And how you can experience it for yourself in the future! Read more below.

A Different Kind of Renovation

Reimagining spaces is what we love to do. There is a certain formula to the process, with different variables and adjustments that make each project and experience so unique. From Chicago to France, we focus our efforts on reviving existing buildings and homes to assure their next era of life.

Embarking on the personal journey of renovating a home in France was never simply about restoring a beautiful old house in the Loire Valley. It was about asking a bigger question: what can a historic home become when it is approached with care, cultural sensitivity, and a commitment to healthier, more intentional living?

As this project continues to unfold, we find ourselves returning to that question again and again. The more time we spend within the walls of the home, dreaming and imagining all of the possibilities, the clearer the answer becomes. Loire Design Lab is not just a renovation. It is about its future life as a living showroom, a case study on how a space can allow ideas around preservation, wellness, material integrity, and modern life to be felt and experienced in a real and tangible way. This distinction matters because it is what makes this project so different from other renovation stories.

More Than a Home

While most homes are designed to serve and nurture those living in them, this one goes beyond that. Loire Design Lab is about creating a space that is part of a larger conversation: how we live today, how we care for what already exists, and how interiors can support beauty and well-being without asking us to sacrifice one for the other.

One of our primary ambitions at MAREDI Design is demonstrating that health, beauty, and historic integrity can coexist within our built environment. Existing buildings can be reimagined to support the needs of modern living, while challenging more conventional ways of building and renovating.

That is why we refer to this place as a living showroom and design lab. It is a hybrid concept, intended to be lived in, tested, and understood through real use, by us and by others. It is meant to be a place where thoughtful renovation, healthy materials, and heritage restoration come together in a way that people can actually see, feel, and imagine for themselves. Along these lines, it feels only natural that it also serves as a place of gathering, a hub for events, dialogue, creative exchange and exploration.

Learnings Along the Way

The project has evolved in ways we never imagined. It is funny to think back to the beginning, when we did not yet fully understand how much the house would be guiding us through the process. We have been so deeply inspired in unexpected ways from the onset, almost as if the house was whispering words of wisdom as it kept revealing new layers.

Like so many old buildings in France, it carries the mysterious marks of different eras, different uses, and different assumptions about how space should function. Restoring it has never been about forcing it into a certain shape. It has been about listening closely enough to understand what the house can become, and then helping it transform toward that future with integrity. The process has been slower than we imagined, but infinitely more meaningful.

Why We Share This Story

It is also why we have chosen to share so much of it publicly. As designers, the opportunity to reimagine a space of our own is something of a dream. It has also been filled with more challenges than any other project as we were dual hats as designer & client. But the case study we imagined seemed too important to keep to ourselves, and an ideal way to demonstrate the deeper values that shape our work.

The project reflects the same principles that guide MAREDI Design more broadly: a respect for heritage, a wellness-centered approach to interiors, and a belief that regenerative choices and cultural fluency can help old spaces support modern life more gracefully. Those ideas sit at the center of the studio’s identity across Chicago and France, and what we infuse in all of our work.

An Invitation to Join Us

Because this project has become a vessel for so many of these ideas, we are thrilled to have opportunities to share more about the process and the future of Loire Design Lab. On June 10, we will be hosting a virtual event as part of the 3rd edition of The Festival of the New European Bauhaus, using Loire Design Lab as a lens through which to explore heritage preservation, sustainable renovation, and 21st-century living. The Festival event of NEB is part of a wider European Commission-led initiative that highlights projects connecting sustainability, beauty, and inclusion.

This event is especially meaningful to us because it creates space to talk not just about what we are doing, but why. We will be sharing the vision behind Loire Design Lab, the thinking that has shaped the renovation so far, and the lessons that have emerged from working within the realities of a historic French building.

For anyone interested in thoughtful restoration, healthier interiors, adaptive reuse, or the future of heritage spaces, this should be a rich and timely conversation.

📅 Date: June 10, 2026

📍 Format: Virtual

🔗 Register: Via this link

What Comes Next

The transformation of the grand suite is still underway, and that means some of the most dramatic visual moments are still ahead. But in a way, that is exactly why this felt like the right chapter to write now. Before the next reveal, it felt important to pause and explain the bigger idea behind the project, the reason this house matters to us, and the reason we believe it may matter to others as well.

Loire Design Lab has never been only about one beautiful property in the Loire Valley. It is about a way of thinking. A way of renovating more thoughtfully. A way of honoring the past without freezing it in place. A way of designing for modern well-being while remaining rooted in context, character, and care. That is the real story unfolding here, and it is the one we are most excited to keep sharing.

Join us for the NEB virtual event on June 10, and follow along as the next phase of Loire Design Lab continues to take shape. The most transformative chapter is still to come.