Before the pandemic, Rachel Grochowski was busy designing yoga studios, movie theaters, upscale bistros and other kinds of crowded gathering spaces tailored to the lifestyle and wellness needs of communities that we all took blissfully for granted in a world without COVID.

Flash forward to the present, and our toned down but still chaotic, pandemic-induced stasis, where the architect is adapting to the growing demand for revitalized interior sanctums with her Montclair, New Jersey-based firm.

As the founder and principal of RHG Architecture+Design, the UW-Milwaukee graduate has been hard at work applying her knowledge of chapels and other religious spaces into remodels of area homes in need of some serious spiritually sprucing up.

“Design is spiritual. It just depends on how you see it,” Grochowski told Forbes’ Valentina Di Donata.

The spaces are a change of pace for the 18-year-old firm, which had focused on commercial and residential interiors before the coronavirus upended lives and effectively shuttering most retail establishments for more than a year.

“These spaces help us to come back to ourselves so we can manage as life gets busy again, we can have these spaces to go back to. It's like a tool to cope with our modern lives,” the architect said. 

Similar shifts in focus have been cropping up across the residential sector. The full sit-down with Gronchowski can be found here.