Practice
Why we still hand-draft every concept sketch
The case for slowing down the earliest stage of design, before software makes decisions look more final than they are.
Architecture & interior design
We design buildings people still love in thirty years
Marrow & Stone is a 62-person studio in Lisbon working across residential, cultural, and hospitality projects. Every commission starts from material honesty and the specifics of its site.
- Completed projects
- 94
- Completed projects
- Design awards
- 17
- Design awards
- In practice since
- 2008
- In practice since
Trusted by teams at
- Sequeira Development
- Alentejo Cultural Trust
- Porto Hospitality Group
- Studio Veiga
- Fundação Marés
- Quinta Real Estate
What we design
Buildings, interiors, and everything between
From first sketch to final punch list, our studio stays involved through construction. We don't hand off drawings and disappear.
Residential architecture
Private houses designed around how a family lives day to day, rather than a rendering that photographs well once.
Cultural & civic buildings
Museums, libraries, and community spaces built to serve a public for generations, not a single opening night.
Hospitality interiors
Hotels and restaurants where the architecture and the interior are designed as one continuous idea.
Adaptive reuse
Bringing historic and industrial structures back into use without erasing what made them worth saving.
Master planning
Site-scale planning for mixed-use developments, balancing density with genuine public space.
Construction oversight
On-site supervision through the full build, because a drawing is only a promise until it's built correctly.
One studio since 2008, no franchise offices
- Total built area
- 480,000 m²
- Total built area
- Countries built in
- 6
- Countries built in
- Repeat clients
- 58%
- Repeat clients
- Studio size
- 62 people
- Studio size
Selected projects
A few buildings we're proud to have finished
Each project listed here was occupied and photographed at least two years after completion. We'd rather show you how a building ages than how it looks empty on opening day.
Cultural institution
Fundação Marés
A contemporary art foundation built into a former salt warehouse on the Lisbon waterfront, preserving the original timber structure as the primary architectural language.
210Kvisitors in first year, triple initial projection
Residential development
Quinta Real Estate
A 24-unit residential development in the Alentejo countryside, oriented entirely around passive cooling and existing cork oak trees on the site.
100%of units sold before completion
About the studio
Founded on the belief that context comes before concept
Marrow & Stone was founded in 2008 by Inês Cabral after a decade working on cultural buildings across Europe. The studio has grown slowly on purpose: every project is still reviewed personally by a principal architect instead of being delegated to a project team working from a brief.
- Site before style
- Every project starts with months of site study before a single concept sketch.
- Material honesty
- We specify materials that age visibly and well. Nothing pretends to be something it isn't.
- Stay through construction
- Principals stay on site through the build, long after permitting is done.
- Small by design
- We turn down work rather than grow past the size where a principal can know every project detail.
Leadership
Inês Cabral
Founding Principal
Tomás Ferreira
Principal, Cultural Projects
Beatriz Nunes
Director of Interiors
Rui Santana
Director of Construction
What clients say after the scaffolding comes down
“Most architects lose interest the moment permitting is done. Inês and her team were on site every week until the last light fixture was installed.”
Rafael Sequeira
Managing Director, Sequeira Development
“We asked for a museum that would still feel considered in fifty years. That's exactly what we got, and it photographs better now than the day it opened.”
Marta Coutinho
Director, Fundação Marés
“Every unit sold off the plans before we broke ground, largely because the renderings matched exactly what got built. That never happens.”
Duarte Lima
Development Partner, Quinta Real Estate
From the studio
Notes on practice
Materials
Designing for a building's fortieth year, not its first
How material choice and detailing change when you design for decades of weathering instead of an opening photograph.
Adaptive reuse
What adaptive reuse costs compared with new build
A candid look at the budget and timeline tradeoffs of preserving existing structure, drawn from three recent projects.
Frequently asked questions
Our sweet spot is 500 to 15,000 square meters. We occasionally take smaller residential commissions when the site is unusual enough to warrant it.
Tell us about the site before you tell us about the building
The best projects start with a conversation about the place, not a program. Reach out with what you're working with.