A small studio, deliberately. Most weeks it is Travis at the drafting table, a site carpenter on the tools, and whoever is measuring the room that morning. Here is who does what, and what each of us actually brings to a renovation.
Architectural designer, studio lead
Runs the measured survey, the drawing set and the site conversations. Fifteen years across residential renovations in Observatory, Woodstock and the Southern Suburbs, with a habit of drawing joinery at full scale before anything is ordered.
Interior stylist, material boards
Builds the material boards and holds the palette together: lime wash, saligna and oak-veneered ply, muted clay and sage. She sources tile by full module so the visible edge of a kitchen run never lands on a cut.
Joinery and site carpentry
Sets out the timber on site and builds the fitted work: window frames, alcove units, the long drafting table in the Woodstock bay. Twenty years on Cape Town sites, including heritage wall lines where the old brick stays and the new work steps back from it.
Every project starts with a measured drawing, not a mood board. Travis surveys, Nadia lays out the materials against the light the room actually gets, and Sipho flags what the existing structure will and will not take before the drawings are finalised. Trade clients and design studios usually sit in on that first review.
Three projects that shaped how the studio draws: a heritage rear extension, a warehouse bay turned drafting room, and a single joinery wall that solved a 52 sqm flat. Each entry carries the brief, the constraint and the drawing set behind the finished room.
Observatory
A 4.2 m boundary and a fig tree that stayed put. Saligna window frames, a lime-washed brick pier, and the wet core left where it was.
Plans, roof-junction section, joinery axonometric
Woodstock
A 68 sqm warehouse bay with a 90 mm slope. Raised timber platform, visible services, birch ply and a cork pin wall.
Platform framing, task lighting layout, pinboard detail
Sea Point
One 6.4 m oak-veneered wall holding wardrobe, desk, bed alcove and kitchen tall units. A sliding panel hides the work zone.
Full elevation, 1:20 plan, alcove soffit section
A Cape Town studio working between measured survey and finished room. The work sits in Observatory, Woodstock, Sea Point and the Southern Suburbs, mostly residential renovations, a few small commercial fit-outs, and furniture drawn to be built rather than photographed.
Travis trained as an architectural designer and moved into interiors through joinery. That order still shapes how the studio talks: a brief gets written down, a constraint gets named, and the drawing set has to survive a carpenter reading it at 7am. Trade clients, homeowners and design studios are all welcome at the same table, though the questions differ.
Homeowners mid-renovation, builders who need a junction resolved, and small studios outsourcing a fit-out package. Each gets the same drawing standard, just a different level of hand-holding.
Site measure first, then a written brief, then plan, section and axonometric before any material is chosen. Timber, tile and hardware get specified against the drawing, not against a mood image.
Styled photography without a drawing set behind it. If the joinery can't be detailed, it doesn't go into the portfolio, and if the budget line doesn't close, we say so before the tender goes out.
The studio keeps a small team on purpose. Travis leads design and joinery detailing, with a surveyor and a part-time draughtsperson on measured drawings and site photography. Material boards are assembled in the Observatory workspace, where clients can walk the samples and compare them under the same north light as the finished rooms.
Studio visits and drawing reviews: info@travisronaldson.com or +27 12 468 1994. The studio is at 60106 Leon Estate Apt. 173, Daviesland, KZN 9212.
The work here exists because a renovation is decided long before a tile is laid. Travis Ronaldson runs a small practice in Cape Town that treats the measured drawing as the first deliverable, not an afterthought. Plans, sections and axonometrics are how a client sees the constraint before it becomes a cost.
That habit comes from working on tight Victorian footprints in Observatory and sloped warehouse bays in Woodstock, where guessing is expensive and the site rarely cooperates.
Every project starts with a site survey and a set of existing drawings. If the floor slopes 90 mm or a fig tree sits on the boundary, that goes on paper first.
Saligna window frames, oak-veneered ply, lime-washed brick. Timber and tile choices are documented with the joinery detail, not picked from a catalogue at the end.
Keeping the wet core in place, leaving services exposed, spending on glazing instead of finishes. Trade-offs are named early so the room still works when the money runs out.
Site photography sits next to the drawing it came from. A styled image alone tells you nothing about how the alcove soffit was built or where the storage went.
The effect for a client is simple: fewer surprises on site, a drawing you can hand to a joiner or a builder, and a record of what was decided and why. Homeowners, trade clients and design studios all work from the same set.