Where you live shapes how you live.
AKD Design Studio is a boutique residential architecture and interior design practice rooted in intentional craft and a deeply personal process.
The architects of their own practice.
For Kelly, design was never purely aesthetic — it was the pursuit of mastery. Shaped early by the belief that creativity, craft, and enduring quality could form the backbone of a meaningful life, she built a practice that reflects exactly that.
Alana's path began in a world that left little room for her creative calling. On maternity leave, she made a decision that redefined her trajectory — stepping away from convention to build a practice rooted in purpose, spatial integrity, and design that genuinely elevates the people inside it.
Their partnership is built on transformation — of spaces, and of how clients experience the process of building them. Together, they guide discerning homeowners through one of the most significant investments they will make — with technical precision, material authority, and the kind of care that makes clients say: I felt heard.
Five principles.
One way of working.
Discover the latest additions to our collection—handpicked pieces that bring new energy to your space.
Our Principles
Well-being
The spaces we create are not backdrops. They are environments designed to actively support the rhythms of a life well lived — where how you feel inside a room is considered as carefully as how it looks.
Timelessness
We build with longevity in mind. Every structural decision, every material, every detail is chosen for how it will age, evolve, and endure — not for how it photographs this season.
Intentionality
Nothing in our process is accidental. From the first site analysis to the final finish selection, every decision is rooted in purpose.
Connection
This work is ultimately about people. The spaces we design bring clients closer to themselves and to each other — and the trust we build along the way is part of what we deliver.
Clarity
We over-communicate. We document precisely. Every drawing, every invoice, every next step is understood before you have to ask.
A boutique practice with an integrated approach.
AKD Design Studio serves clients across Ontario and beyond — on new builds, full renovations, and complete-vision projects where architecture and interiors are never treated as separate disciplines. Our process begins with how you intend to live, and every decision that follows is in service of that.
Alana + Kelly
Alana chose this work deliberately — leaving behind a path that wasn't hers to build one that was. What began with small, community-rooted projects in Ontario has grown into a full architectural practice defined by precision, spatial intelligence, and a deep respect for how the structure of a home shapes the life lived inside it. At AKD, she leads every project from site analysis through to permit — reading grade, orientation, and material the way others read a room. The spaces she designs are built to endure: structurally, aesthetically, and in the lives of the people who inhabit them.
Alana Nielsen
Architectural Design
Kelly has always believed that great design is less about what you put in a room and more about what you leave out. Shaped early by the idea that mastery of craft could become a way of life — and that a beautifully designed space has the power to change how someone moves through their day — she built a practice rooted in material precision, editorial restraint, and the art of knowing when a space is finally right. She leads every interior project at AKD from concept through to installation: selecting, sourcing, curating, and refining until nothing feels incidental. Her benchmark isn't that it looks finished. It's that it feels like it was always meant to be there.