For studios / The Founding 50
Built for your
first hire.
For the year your studio brings on its first designer and the workload doubles. One living document per client, from brief to install.
Bring one live project.50 working designers. Kody and Leah read every application.
Patina is pre-launch.
An invitation
A place in
the Founding 50.
Illustration.
Your client sees the same page you do: one agreed direction.
Rooted in Madison. Open to your studio.“Bring one live project.”
Tell us about a job your studio is running now, from the brief to the install. We read every application ourselves.
Kody and Leah
Middle West Studio / Madison, Wisconsin
An invitation to working studios.
Built from practice.
Shaped with yours.
Patina is a venture of Middle West Studio in Madison, Wisconsin. Leah leads design, voice and teaching. Kody leads build, infrastructure and operations.
The Founding 50 is a circle of 50 working designers shaping Patina. Your way of seeing, your language, and the realities of your work matter here.
The story behind Patina
Interior design: Leah Kochaver, Middle West Studio. Photography: Ashley Hicks.
A designer’s way of seeing.
Your judgment
lives in the details.
How it sits in the room.
The space around an armchair. The scale of a table. The relationship between pieces. You see the room before you see a list of products.
What your studio gets.
One page.
One agreed direction.
Bring your experience into the building process, alongside designers who care about the same details you do.
Many ways of seeing.
- One living document per client
- From the brief to the install, the job lives on one page.
- One agreed direction
- Your client sees the same page you do.
- A quiet desk
- No dashboards, no task manager, no tab bars.
- Read by Kody and Leah
- Kody and Leah read every application. Patina is pre-launch, and the Founding 50 shapes what comes next.
A place in the Founding 50.
Bring one
live project.
Tell us about your studio and the job you would bring. Kody and Leah read every application.
Patina is pre-launch. Joining the Founding 50 is an invitation to help shape it.
Talk to us first
A little about your practice.
Start with your name and email. The rest helps us understand your point of view.
Not a studio? Homeowners can get The Designer’s Eye, our letter on rooms that last.