Our Team
Arla Meröe is a restorative interior design studio rooted in the belief that a well-designed space is not a luxury — it is a form of care.
We work across residential, commercial, and hospitality environments, designing spaces that support health, calm the nervous system, and hold people with dignity — from a single room to a full development.
Our standard is consistent regardless of scale: structure first, beauty as the outcome.
We do not decorate. We world-build. Every project begins with a deep understanding of how a space is lived in — the morning routines, the evening rituals, the habits and needs ofthe people inside it. From there, we design systems, select materials, and make decisions that serve the body as much as the eye.
Jei Christie is the Founder and Principal Designer of Arla Meröe — a restorative interior design studio built on the belief that a well-designed space is not a luxury. It is a form of care.
Her relationship with design began long before she had the language for it. She was drawn early to wall treatments, atmosphere, and the restoration of old things — paying attention to how a finish could soften a room, how a color could steady it, how light alone could change what a space asked of you. She wasn’t interested in decoration as an endpoint. She was interested in what a space does to a person.
That question became a standard. Jei designs with a deep commitment to sustainable, biophilic, and ecological principles — believing that the built environment should work in relationship with the natural world, not against it. Her material language reflects that: mineral finishes, breathable surfaces, natural texture, and low-chemical interiors that support air quality as deliberately as they support beauty. She considers not only how a space looks, but how it feels to inhabit over time — and what it asks of the body every single day.
She calls her process world-building. Not fantasy — but the construction of immersive environments where beauty and function are inseparable, where every decision serves the people inside, and where the architecture’s existing story is honored, refined, and carried forward with modern clarity.
Warm in presence and exacting in execution, she is known for the kind of authority that doesn’t announce itself — spaces that hold you without calling attention to how.
Jei Christie
Founder & Principal Designer
Danielle Kelly brings the studio’s concepts into focus — translating early design thinking into clear visual language through vignette-building, material mood studies, and spatial storytelling. Her eye for composition and her instinct for how elements work together in a room make her an essential part of how Arla Meröe develops and communicates its creative direction.
Beyond the visual, Danielle keeps the studio’s work moving with intention. Through documentation and coordinated communication, she ensures that the care built into every design decision carries through to the client experience. She is the through-line between concept and delivery.
Danielle Kelly
Artistic Designer & Project Coordinator
Great design is never built alone.
The work of Arla Meröe is made possible by a trusted network of artisans, craftspeople, and
specialized tradespeople who bring our vision to life with skill, precision, and integrity. We
are deeply grateful for each of them.
Our custom furnishings and cabinetry are realized through partnerships with woodworking artisans who understand that joinery, proportion, and material selection are not finishing details — they are the design.
Our metalwork and steel fabrication is executed by
craftspeople whose technical precision gives our spaces their quiet authority and structural
depth.
The mineral wall treatments that are central to our Organic Lux material standard — the
limewash, Roman clay, lime plasters, and specialty finishes — are applied by craftsmen who
have trained specifically in these techniques. Their hands are what give our walls their
texture, their breath, and their life. No machine replicates what they do.
Our organic wallpaper hangers work with an expertise and care that the material demands —
using specialized adhesives and application methods that protect both the installation and
the interior air quality we work so hard to achieve.
And the textile and fabric houses we partner with share our commitment to material integrity
— producing performance and natural textiles that meet our standards for beauty, longevity,
and low chemical burden.
Without these collaborators, there is no ArlaMeröe. They are not vendors. They are part of the work.