Workplace, hospitality, and retail design that flexes for you.
Flex Design Studio is a nimble, client-centered firm creating spaces that reflect each client's identity, balancing design, brand, and operational performance. With roots in Chicago and now based in New Orleans, we bring an adaptable, forward-thinking approach led by Aleks Furman, Founder and Principal — a collective ready to take on projects at any scale.
Workplace, hospitality, retail, cannabis, and residential design.
Every sector we work in comes with its own codes, its own users, and its own definition of a good day. We design for the one you're actually running.
Workplace
Offices built around how teams actually move through a day, not a floor plan template.
Hospitality
Bars, restaurants, and hotels where the design carries the brand as much as the menu does.
Retail
Storefronts and showrooms designed to convert foot traffic without losing the brand's edge.
Cannabis dispensary
Compliant, secure retail layouts for a sector most designers still don't understand.
Cannabis grow & manufacturing
Cultivation and production facilities built around workflow, code compliance, and product security.
Residential
Homes designed with the same rigor as our commercial work — for clients who want their space to feel considered, not decorated.
You see the space before it's built.
Every project runs through BIM from schematic planning onward, so what you approve is what gets built — not a rough impression of it.
BIM modeling
Every project is modeled in BIM from the schematic phase, keeping architecture, finishes, and consultant coordination in one accurate model.
Photorealistic 3D rendering
Finishes, lighting, and materials rendered before purchase order, so decisions get made on what the space will actually look like.
Fly-through walkthroughs
Animated fly-throughs of the finished model, built for client approvals, investor decks, and leasing walkthroughs.
Have a space that needs to work harder?
Tell us about the project, the timeline, and the budget. We'll tell you what's realistic.
Founded on the idea that space should flex with the business it holds.
Flex Design Studio was founded in 2022 by Aleks Furman, with roots in Chicago before relocating the practice to New Orleans. The studio works nationally, bringing a forward-thinking approach to commercial interiors through adaptable design, sustainable strategies, and a focus on how spaces evolve over time.
We aim to understand a client's history, culture, and goals before we draw a single wall — then apply that knowledge to a space built for their brand, not a template. We're comfortable in the messier parts of construction: tight deadlines, shifting scopes, and the coordination it takes to get a project from concept to occupancy.
Three things that shape every project.
Adaptable by design
Spaces should hold up as a business changes — new headcount, new use, new brand direction — without a full redesign.
Human first
Intentional, functional, distinctly human. Good design solves for the people using the space every day, not the render.
Modeled, not guessed
Every project runs through BIM from schematic planning on, so what gets approved in a fly-through is what actually gets built.
From schematic to occupancy.
The same four stages on every project, scaled to fit the size of the space.
Schematic planning
Space programming and early layout options grounded in your goals and site constraints.
Design development
Materials and finishes developed in BIM, with photorealistic renders and fly-throughs so you see the space before it's built.
Construction documentation
Drawings accurate enough for general contractors to bid and build from with confidence.
Construction administration
On-site coordination through completion, keeping the build aligned to the design.
Full delivery, or exactly the piece you need.
We take projects from first sketch through final walkthrough — or step in for a single phase if that's what the project calls for.
Schematic planning
Space programming and early layout studies that test how a floor plan actually performs before it's locked in.
Design development
Materials, finishes, lighting, and furniture direction, developed inside a single coordinated BIM model.
Construction documentation
Complete drawing sets for permitting and general contractor bidding, built for accuracy.
Construction administration
On-site coordination through build-out, keeping trades, timeline, and design in sync.
BIM modeling
A single coordinated model across architecture, MEP, and finishes, carried from schematic planning through construction admin.
3D rendering & fly-throughs
Photorealistic renders and animated fly-through walkthroughs for approvals, leasing, and investor presentations.
Branding & identity
Where the interior needs to carry brand identity as much as it carries furniture.
Permitting & consultant coordination
Direct coordination with engineering, security, and AV/IT consultants and local permitting bodies.
Not sure what phase you're in?
Tell us where the project stands. We'll tell you what it needs next.
Projects across six sectors.
A cross-section of workplace, hospitality, retail, cannabis, and residential projects, filtered by sector below.
HAY Cannabis — Chicago
An Illinois adult-use cannabis dispensary with a hexagon brand motif, exposed brick, living moss walls, and herringbone floors.
Elevated Wine Bar in the CBD
A wine bar and lounge built around a mirrored wine wall, sculptural LED ceiling coves, and a curved marble bar anchoring the room.
Flex — New Orleans HQ
Flex Design Studio's own New Orleans headquarters.
Grasshopper Club — South Loop
A curved walnut bud bar running the length of a high-traffic Chicago storefront — backlit brick and apothecary shelving behind it, glass block partitions, terrazzo underfoot, and a living wall over the merch display.
Après — Warehouse District Nightclub
A futuristic, industrial nightclub built from perforated metal, glass block, and marble, with a raised stage platform under a wall of warm neon light.
GGI Booth
A showroom and trade show booth for a glass fabricator, using the product itself as architecture — printed and laminated glass partitions framing sample bars for specialty, architectural, and decorative lines.
Green Cup
A glazed green-tile display wall and oak millwork anchor this Bronx dispensary, with terrazzo flooring and a glowing marquee sign.
Chicory Rooftop Lounge
A rooftop addition for the beloved Chicory event venue, with a woven sail-shade canopy, bamboo privacy screening, and a corrugated-metal bar overlooking the skyline.
Raven — New Orleans HQ
Headquarters build-out for Raven's New Orleans office.
Terrabis — Mundelein, IL
A ground-up cannabis dispensary conversion with a branded topographic mural, walnut display cases, and secure retail flow from entry to checkout.
Bywater Music Venue
A live music venue build-out in the Bywater.
Cloudhaven Dispensary
A branded reception hallway with a graduated blue ceiling and wood slat beams, designed around full ADA-accessible circulation.
Creole Restaurant
A restaurant build-out for a confidential client.
830 Foucher
A full renovation of a historic Queen Anne cottage in the Irish Channel — original millwork, wainscot and corner fireplaces preserved, then set against sage plaster, mustard zellige, terracotta hex floors, and a glass block shower.
KI Showroom
A furniture showroom build-out for KI.
Eurofins — Central Analytical Labs
Elevator lobbies and conference rooms for a central analytical lab.
AGS Dispensary Concept
A design concept pairing brass-framed terrazzo display islands with oak millwork and black corrugated metal, for a dispensary with a boutique-retail feel.
Bywater Bar
A neighborhood bar build-out in the Bywater.
2523 Prytania
A full-home renovation of the 1856 Lonsdale Mansion, once home to Anne Rice and later Nicolas Cage. Structural failure left the house gutted to its shell — the interior is being rebuilt around a restored grand staircase, leaded-glass entry, and herringbone floors.
Terrabis — Dixon, IL
A second Terrabis location carrying the brand's topographic identity and walnut millwork into a new market, with dedicated kiosk and budtender counters.
Amata Express
Workplace build-out for Amata Express.
Resistance Lagree — Milwaukee Ave
A boutique Lagree studio set beneath exposed steel joists and raw ductwork, with a frosted glazing band wrapping the machine floor and an oak locker corridor drawing members in from the entry.
Empire Cannabis Co.
A cannabis dispensary build-out.
Bywater Recording Studio / Practice Space
A high-end recording studio and practice stage in the Bywater, conceived by New Orleans native and six-time Grammy winner PJ Morton — a professional-grade room built for the country's biggest acts to write, rehearse, and record.
Terrabis — Woodstock, IL
A third Terrabis build-out, extending the brand's blue-and-white identity to a new storefront with self-checkout kiosks and a full retail floor.
1265 Esplanade
A full-home renovation of a double-gallery house on Esplanade Avenue — cast-iron railings and rusticated siding restored outside; inside, heart pine floors, plaster medallions and pocket doors kept alongside exposed brick chimneys, black-ceilinged baths, and hex tile.
Center Staging — Office Expansion
An office expansion built around the brand's palette — a striped acoustic ceiling and backlit cork feature wall in the conference room, a rust wave-panel wall and open steel stair linking the café to lounge and work areas above.
8638 Trout Ave.
A multi-unit renovation a block off Lake Tahoe — each studio built around a slatted pine volume that hides storage and the bed, paired with blackened-steel kitchenettes, grid tile, polished concrete, and sleeping lofts under vaulted ceilings.
Nile Dispensary — Bergenline Ave
An adult-use dispensary on Hudson County's densest retail corridor, built around a curved stone welcome desk, a lotus mural on white brick, and light birch display millwork under a raw concrete ceiling.
Resistance Lagree — Addison Ave
A second Resistance Lagree studio, opened up as a single blacked-out volume — exposed structure and continuous linear LED runs overhead, a full glazed wall bringing daylight across the Megaformer rows and polished concrete floor.
Leaf Life
An adult-use dispensary built around a timber trellis threaded with trailing greenery — a backlit oak bud bar beneath it, round display plinths on the floor, and a hand-drawn botanical mural anchoring the entry.
Solomon St.
A full-home renovation with a bath wrapped floor-to-ceiling in grid tile — walls, ceiling and tub surround alike — lit by a glass block window and punctuated throughout by red fixtures, set against sage walls and fluted oak wainscot.
Battle Green
A cannabis cultivation and manufacturing facility.
Terrabis — KC Manufacturing Facility
Cultivation and manufacturing workflow design carrying the Terrabis brand into a production facility.
Terrabis — Hazelwood, MO
A fourth Terrabis location, carrying the brand's topographic identity into Missouri.
AGS
A cannabis cultivation and manufacturing facility.
Press, insights, and studio updates.
Flex Design Studio is a New Orleans-based leader in workplace, hospitality, cannabis dispensary, and retail design. This is where we post practical insights for cannabis operators, commercial real estate developers, office and building managers, and bar, restaurant, and retail owners — plus press mentions and updates from LinkedIn and Instagram as they happen.
Dispensary design checklist: what cannabis operators need before permitting
A practical walkthrough for cannabis operators planning a new location — security lines, product flow, and the layout decisions that make or break a dispensary permit review, from a studio that specializes in cannabis dispensary design nationally.
Read more →Security is architecture, not an add-on
Every state cannabis dispensary design program starts from the same regulatory baseline: controlled entry, limited-access product areas, and camera coverage with no blind spots. Where operators lose time in permitting is treating security as equipment dropped into a finished floor plan instead of a layout decision made on day one. A compliant dispensary design routes customers through a single controlled path from lobby to sales floor, keeps a secure vestibule between the public entrance and the retail area, and positions cash handling and storage away from exterior walls and windows. Get this sequencing wrong and a general contractor is reframing walls mid-build.
Product flow and the sales counter
Beyond security, the layout has to work as retail. Display cases, POS stations, and budtender counters need enough width for a browsing customer and a staff member to work side by side without a bottleneck at checkout. In cannabis dispensary design specifically, product categories (flower, edibles, concentrates, accessories) usually need distinct zones both for merchandising clarity and because some jurisdictions regulate how certain product types can be displayed or stored relative to entry points.
What permitting reviewers actually check
Plan reviewers are looking for three things: a clear security narrative matching the state's cannabis regulations, ADA-compliant circulation, and life-safety compliance (egress, occupancy load, fire separation) that hasn't been compromised by security partitions. Flex Design Studio builds every cannabis dispensary design project — from Terrabis's multiple Illinois and Missouri locations to concept work in New Jersey — around this sequence, so the drawings that go to permitting already answer the questions a reviewer is going to ask.
What commercial real estate developers should ask before hiring a design firm
For developers and property owners planning tenant improvements, a look at how the right interior design partner protects budget, timeline, and lease-up speed on workplace, retail, and hospitality build-outs.
Read more →Budget certainty starts at schematic, not construction documents
The single biggest driver of tenant improvement cost overruns is a design that wasn't tested against real constraints before it got expensive to change. A design partner experienced in commercial real estate tenant improvement work will pressure-test a layout against the base building's mechanical, structural, and code constraints during schematic planning — before a contractor is pricing it. That's the phase where a $40,000 mistake is still a five-minute conversation.
Timeline risk lives in permitting, not construction
Developers chasing a lease-up date usually assume construction is the long pole. In practice, permitting delays caused by incomplete or non-coordinated drawings cost more time than the build itself. Ask any prospective firm how they coordinate with MEP, structural, and — for retail, hospitality, or cannabis dispensary design projects — security and life-safety consultants. A firm that runs those conversations in parallel with design development, not after, is the one that keeps your date.
What "lease-up ready" actually means
A workplace design, retail buildout, or hospitality space that photographs well but confuses tenants or customers in daily use isn't done — it's decorated. Ask to see how a firm designs for the operational reality of the space: staffing flow in a restaurant, sightlines in a retail store, way-finding in a multi-tenant office floor. Flex Design Studio works across all of these sectors nationally, which means the same studio coordinating your workplace fit-out can carry that same rigor into the retail or hospitality tenant next door.
Retrofitting an office for hybrid work: a building manager's guide
Office and building managers are being asked to do more with existing floors. Flex Design Studio on how workplace design can raise occupancy and tenant satisfaction without a full gut renovation.
Read more →Fewer assigned desks, more reasons to come in
The office design brief has changed. Fixed desk ratios that made sense in 2019 now sit half-empty three days a week, while conference rooms and informal collaboration areas are overbooked. A hybrid-focused workplace design retrofit typically converts a portion of individual workstations into a mix of team huddle rooms, phone booths, and lounge-style collaboration zones — without touching the building's core mechanical or structural systems.
What building managers underestimate
Acoustic separation is the most commonly missed line item in an office design retrofit. Open, collaborative layouts sound great in a rendering and terrible in a building with thin partition walls. Budgeting for acoustic ceiling treatment and partial-height sound-dampening walls early avoids a change order once tenants start complaining. The second underestimated cost is power and data — flexible furniture layouts need flexible power distribution, which is a floor-box or power-pole conversation that has to happen in design development, not after the furniture is ordered.
A retrofit, not a gut renovation
The projects that raise occupancy fastest aren't full teardowns — they're targeted workplace design interventions: a refreshed lobby and elevator lobby, one or two signature amenity spaces, and updated finishes in the highest-traffic zones. Flex Design Studio's workplace design work, including the studio's own New Orleans headquarters, follows this same principle — spend where it changes how the space is actually used, not just how it photographs.
Designing a bar or restaurant that survives its first year
For bar and restaurant owners, a breakdown of where hospitality design actually moves the needle on covers, labor flow, and repeat customers — not just what shows up in the photos.
Read more →The kitchen decides the dining room
Most bar and restaurant design conversations start with the front of house — the bar, the booths, the lighting. But covers per night are capped by the kitchen and service line long before they're capped by seat count. Hospitality design that starts with a realistic ticket-time model for the actual menu, then builds the dining room and bar layout around a service path that can support it, is the difference between a restaurant that turns tables and one that bottlenecks at 7pm on a Friday.
Labor flow is a design problem
Servers and bartenders walking excess distance between the pass, the bar, and tables isn't a staffing problem — it's a layout problem. In hospitality design, a bar positioned to serve both the bar seating and a meaningful share of the dining room reduces the runner and server headcount needed to hit the same covers, which is a margin decision made at the design table, not after opening night.
Design for the slow Tuesday, not just the packed Saturday
A bar or restaurant design that only works at full capacity is a design that loses money most nights of the week. Flexible seating — banquettes that convert from two-tops to larger parties, a bar that reads as full at half capacity — keeps the room feeling right on a slow night, which is where most independent restaurants actually live. It's the same thinking behind projects like Flex Design Studio's Elevated Wine Bar and Après nightclub in New Orleans: rooms designed to hold their character whether they're at 30% or 100% capacity.
Retail storefront design that converts foot traffic into sales
A guide for retail business owners on how storefront and floor-plan design shape conversion — from sightlines at the entrance to the layout decisions that keep shoppers moving toward checkout.
Read more →The first ten feet decide whether someone stays
Retail design lives or dies in the decompression zone — the first few steps inside the door where a shopper is still deciding whether to browse or bounce. A cluttered entrance, unclear sightlines to the category they came in for, or a storefront window that doesn't signal what's actually sold inside all cost conversion before a customer reaches a single product.
Sightlines that guide, not confuse
Good retail design uses fixture height and placement to create a clear read of the store from the entrance — tall fixtures at the perimeter, lower ones toward the center, so a shopper can see across the floor and orient immediately. This matters as much for a flagship apparel store as it does for a dispensary retail floor, where product categorization also has to satisfy display regulations.
Checkout is a design decision, not an afterthought
Where the checkout counter sits changes both perceived wait time and impulse-purchase revenue. A counter visible from the entrance reduces the anxiety of an unclear checkout process; a counter positioned along a natural path past secondary product displays increases add-on sales. Flex Design Studio applies the same retail design principles across storefronts and cannabis dispensary retail floors alike — the regulatory details differ, the conversion logic doesn't.
What makes workplace design actually work in New Orleans
As a New Orleans workplace design leader, Flex breaks down how it balances brand identity with the practical realities of a hybrid-work office — from space planning to BIM-modeled build-outs.
Read more →Brand identity versus practical reality
New Orleans workplace design has a specific tension most national playbooks don't account for: clients want a space that reflects the city's character without leaning on tourist-facing cliches, inside buildings that are frequently older stock with real structural and mechanical constraints. Getting that balance right means starting from the building's actual bones, not a mood board, and letting brand identity show up in materials and color rather than forcing an open-plan layout into a floor plate that was never built for one.
BIM-modeled build-outs reduce surprises
Every Flex Design Studio workplace design project runs through Building Information Modeling from schematic planning forward, coordinating architecture, MEP, and finishes in a single model. For a New Orleans office build-out, where existing conditions are rarely as-drawn, that coordination catches conflicts — a duct run through a planned ceiling feature, a structural column inside a proposed conference room — before they become a change order mid-construction.
What "hybrid-ready" means in practice
A New Orleans workplace design that actually gets used treats the office as a destination, not a default. That means fewer, better collaboration spaces instead of rows of underused desks, acoustic separation that makes video calls usable from an open floor, and finishes durable enough to handle a coffee-shop level of daily traffic. Flex Design Studio has applied this approach to its own Bywater headquarters and to clients including Raven and Eurofins' New Orleans offices.
Cannabis dispensary design: what compliance actually requires
A look at the layout, security, and regulatory details that separate a compliant, sellable dispensary build-out from one that stalls in permitting — from a studio that specializes in cannabis dispensary design nationally.
Read more →Compliance requirements vary by state, the logic doesn't
Every state regulates cannabis dispensary design differently — some require a limited-access vestibule, others mandate specific product storage and vault specifications, and camera coverage requirements vary widely. What stays constant across every jurisdiction Flex Design Studio has worked in, from Illinois to Missouri to New Jersey, is that compliant dispensary design has to be built into the schematic layout, not layered onto a finished floor plan after the fact.
The regulatory checklist that shapes layout
A dispensary design review typically checks four things: controlled entry sequencing, product security (display case construction, vault location, storage separation from public areas), ADA-compliant circulation, and standard life-safety code — egress width, occupancy load, fire separation between the retail floor and any back-of-house storage. Missing any one of these in the construction documents is what sends a project back for revisions instead of through to a permit.
Designing for the inspector and the customer at the same time
The best cannabis dispensary design work doesn't read as a security checkpoint to the customer walking in. Flex Design Studio's work with Terrabis across Illinois and Missouri, and concept work for AGS and Cloudhaven, treats security infrastructure as part of the material palette — branded vestibules, finished display walls, considered lighting — rather than an obvious add-on, so the space satisfies the regulator and still feels like a retail environment worth walking into.
Hospitality design trends shaping New Orleans bars and restaurants
Flex Design Studio on how hospitality design in New Orleans is evolving — and what it takes to design a bar or restaurant that reads as intentional as the menu.
Read more →Materials that hold up to a New Orleans summer
Humidity and heat shape hospitality design decisions in New Orleans in ways a more temperate market never has to consider. Material choices that look identical on a spec sheet perform very differently after a year of high humidity and heavy foot traffic — sealed concrete and porcelain tile over untreated wood on high-traffic floors, moisture-resistant substrates behind bars and in kitchen-adjacent walls. It's a durability conversation as much as an aesthetic one.
Designing for photographs and for service, at the same time
A striking ceiling detail or a mirrored wine wall photographs well, but hospitality design that only works for the camera fails the staff running food and drinks through it every night. The best New Orleans bar and restaurant projects — Flex Design Studio's Elevated Wine Bar and Après nightclub among them — build the signature visual moment around, not in spite of, the service path.
What's changing heading into 2026
Rooftop and outdoor expansion projects, like Flex Design Studio's Chicory rooftop lounge addition, are picking up as venues look to add capacity without a full renovation of the existing footprint. Hospitality design is also leaning further into industrial and futuristic material palettes — perforated metal, glass block, exposed structure — as an alternative to the reclaimed-wood look that has defined New Orleans hospitality design for the last decade.
Flex Design Studio founder joins new Bywater business group's board
Aleks Furman has joined the founding board of the Bywater-Marigny Business Organization (ByMBO), a new group working to improve safety and streetscape conditions along St. Claude Avenue. Full story via NOLA.com / The Times-Picayune.
Photo provided by Flex Design Studio
Terrabis opens 5th Illinois dispensary in Mundelein — a Flex Design Studio project
Cannabis Business Times covers Terrabis's new Mundelein, IL location — part of three Illinois openings in eight months, bringing the operator's footprint to nine dispensaries across Illinois and Missouri. Full story via Cannabis Business Times.
Photo provided by Flex Design Studio
Terrabis to open new cannabis dispensary — Crain's Chicago Business
Crain's Chicago Business covers Terrabis's continued Illinois expansion, part of the multi-state operator's growing footprint that includes several Flex Design Studio – designed locations. Full story via Chicago Business Journal.
Photo provided by Flex Design Studio
Black-owned Grasshopper Club dispensary expands to South Loop — Block Club Chicago
Block Club Chicago covers the opening of Grasshopper Club's second location, a family-run, Black-owned dispensary in Chicago's South Loop — designed by Flex Design Studio. Full story via Block Club Chicago.
GreenCup opens a Rego Park, Queens location
Respect My Region covers GreenCup's Rego Park, Queens location — a separate GreenCup site from the Flex Design Studio – designed Bronx dispensary. Full story via Respect My Region.
Raven PMG's Bywater warehouse builds experiences for Lollapalooza, Bonnaroo, and the World Cup
NOLA.com profiles Raven PMG, the Bywater fabrication company co-founded by Flex Design Studio's Chris Berends and Mélinda Cohen, which designs and builds large-scale event installations for major festivals and global brands. Full story via NOLA.com.
Photo provided by Flex Design Studio
South Beloit's second marijuana dispensary opens — Beloit Daily News
Beloit Daily News covers the opening of CloudHaven Dispensary in South Beloit, IL, the client behind Flex Design Studio's Cloudhaven concept project. Full story via Beloit Daily News.
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