About the studio

Caring Circle Rooms is a Vienna practice devoted to children's interiors in flats — not whole-home makeovers. Below, five questions we hear most about who we are and how we work.

Founders Q&A

Who started Caring Circle Rooms?

The studio was founded by Lena Hofbauer, an interior planner who spent early years documenting how toddlers actually use Altbau bedrooms in the 7th and 8th districts, and Marek Varga, a joinery coordinator who translates those observations into cabinets that clear radiators and window seats. They opened the Mariahilfer Straße base so parents could drop measured sketches between school runs without booking a downtown gallery appointment.

Why only children's rooms?

Adult living rooms and children's sleep spaces fail for different reasons. Adult briefs chase entertaining flow; children's briefs chase reach heights, soft floor edges, and storage that survives growth spurts. By refusing whole-apartment packages we keep every drawing focused on beds, play floors, desks, and wardrobe carcasses that fit Vienna's typical room depths of three to four metres.

What backgrounds sit behind the team?

Lena trained in spatial planning and later assisted heritage flat renovations where children's rooms were often treated as leftover corners. Marek came from a workshop that built fitted kitchens for Neubau towers and noticed nursery wardrobes failing when depth ignored door casings. Two project assistants handle site measures and supplier chasing so founders stay on the room geometry instead of inbox triage.

How do you work with Altbau versus Neubau?

Altbau rooms bring thick walls, uneven floors, and precious daylight from courtyard windows. Neubau rooms bring straighter walls, lower ceilings in some towers, and stricter house rules on drilling. We keep separate measure sheets for each building type so a shared-room bunk plan never assumes a plaster thickness that does not exist on site.

Where can families meet you?

Studio hours are by appointment at Mariahilfer Straße 88, 1070 Wien. First conversations often happen on site in the child's room with the brief checklist from our home page already filled. Telephone +43 1 555 9240 and email [email protected] remain open for sending photos and square-metre notes before a visit is booked.

Studio philosophy in practice

We design for the next four to six years of a child's life, not for a magazine photograph that ages out in one season. That means adjustable rails, furniture that can change roles when a crib leaves, and colours that still feel calm when toys cover half the floor. Parents keep the right to change paint later; we lock the hard geometry first.

Every commission stays inside children's interiors. If a family later wants a living-room refresh, we refer them rather than stretch our detailing into rooms we do not specialise in.

Districts we visit regularly

Most visits land in Neubau, Mariahilf, Josefstadt, Wieden, and nearby Altbau streets with courtyard flats. Outer districts are possible when the brief is clear and delivery logistics are known. Travel time is built into the fee rows on the pricing page so you see the cost of distance before we schedule.

What we do not sell

We do not run childcare, tutoring, or wellness programmes. We do not install electrical systems ourselves; we coordinate with licensed trades when lighting tracks or outlets must move. Furniture shopping lists stay optional — some families want full sourcing, others only the layout and joinery drawings.

How to start a conversation

Fill the four-step brief on the home page, skim process and fees, then write with ages and room photos. A short reply confirms whether a measure visit makes sense or whether one missing dimension should come first.