Poonam Khanna is the founder of Unionworks, a multidisciplinary design studio based in New York that is celebrated for its quiet, soulful spaces that balance restraint with deeply personal storytelling. With a background spanning architecture, interiors, and custom furniture design, Poonam has developed a reputation for creating homes that feel grounded, tactile, and intentional. Her work is regularly featured in leading design publications, and she is sought after for her ability to layer subtle textures, natural materials, and hand-crafted details in ways that feel timeless yet entirely individual.
In this conversation, Poonam shares the guiding principles behind her design process - from uncovering the unspoken desires of her clients to composing spaces that evolve over time. She discusses her affinity for “marks of the maker,” her nuanced approach to light as a material, and why she believes a home should be curated, not simply decorated. The result? Environments that invite a deep breath, and feel quietly unforgettable.
Your interiors feel incredibly intentional - restrained yet soulful. What’s the first thing you always consider when beginning a new project?
Every single project we do is one off, so I'm trying to understand what the clients are saying when they’re not using words. There is always an undercurrent in what they’re telling me, and that’s what I’m trying to get at, trying to understand. It’s easy for someone to say to me ‘I want yellow in my home,’ but I look to find out why, what it is about yellow they’re drawn to, what emotional response that they’re looking to get from it. And then what other things can be used to help the design go in that direction. They often won’t know these things themselves, so I’m looking to compose a harmony from the melodies they’re giving me.
Is that a useful way that anyone could design their own home? To go deeper than than their responses to aesthetics?
Absolutely. Start with an emotional reference - images of objects or phystical things you love that are already around your place. Try and capture what it is about that thing that you respond to, that makes you feel like you, that makes you feel how you want to, or even gives you your identity. From that, you can distill similar or complementary things that do the same job, to enhance that original item. There is always one random thing like this that starts a project.
Your projects often feel more curated than decorated. How do you know when a space is “done”?
Never! It’s really true, we have a client who we’ve been reworking and refreshing and redoing for a long time. I think our approach to design is different, our clients are different, and they continue to change a bit over time. You grow into a space, you accumulate pieces from trips and experiences, you bring them with you into a space. You need to take time to make a space feel like you. A home is often about tangible experiences, a shell on your shelf that you found on a beach walk that sparks a memory of that day.
You’ve said before that you like spaces to feel quiet and grounded. What are the key elements that help you create that kind of atmosphere?
It’s hard to define, but you you’ll notice that it feels good in the spaces - when you’re in them, they feels good. There is a lot of attention to the tactile qualities and to all the different finishes, which helps. It’s also important to have things made by hand. There has to be some trace to have a sense of human production. We don’t do spaces that are clean-lined and perfectly smooth. In my own life I like a variety of my own objects and experiences. I like threads that start to come together - sometimes repeating colors, patterns, various palettes being played with in different ways. We don’t design for the wow moments, we design for a quiet volume.
And what is it about those ‘marks of the maker,’ as it were, that appeals so much?
It feel like real life, like real stuff, and it carries stories of where the pieces came from. Anything that you can feel was another person’s making, that has a sense of childlike quality and play. We don’t need everything around us to be perfectly smooth, it’s good to have things that are a little awkward, they may not be speaking the same vocabulary as those next to them.
What are the pieces in your own life that are special to you, that bring that sense of groundedness for you?
I have some ceramics that are very special to me, made by my brother, and another piece made by my friends. There is one vessel that has been in my life since I was a teenager, and went to the Philadelphia Museum of Art with my parents, who bought it. That memory is so special to me.
Where do you tend to source these sorts of pieces for clients? Where’s good to go?
It’s fun to shop in Belgium, and really fun to shop in France - both in Paris and the south. And the Netherlands has amazing vintage pieces. I would love to go on a sourcing trip to South America. And Japan. And London! I like a good smorgasbord, I like variety.
One of the most compelling things about your work is your use of subtle texture - hand-finished plaster, honed stone, brushed wood. What draws you to this kind of material honesty?
Plaster in all iterations is good right now - it has a scent, it’s fascinating how people are responding to it. I’m also obsessed with cork, having spent time in Portugal where it’s used more widely. I’m thinking about using it to thickly clad surfaces, making furniture with it. I’m also looking at it for a showroom project as little penny tiles on a floor.
In several of your projects, natural light becomes almost an architectural feature. How do you approach working with light as a material?
I do believe that light exists as a material. I think it’s been the case for a long time, it's an unconscious reaction I have. In my own life I use light very sparingly, and am changing our office to a Ketra lighting system that will match the light inside to what is outside. I really think one of the things we want to lean into is creating a basic system in the four corners of the room that follows a Ketra system, then to layer warmth on top of it. I’m really interested to put that into space and see. You need volume to the way you light.
And finally, if someone walked into a room you’d designed, what’s the one thing you’d hope they feel?
I hope they take a deep breath, and feel comfortable, and that they’d feel good, and that there is something that might catch their eye.
See more of Poonam's work at Unionworks
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