Karolina Rochman-Drohomirecka creates spaces that combine modernity with respect for tradition and craftsmanship. In design, she thinks in colour.
In 2025, she was included in the prestigious AD100 – the list of the most influential architects and designers from Poland and around the world. Her projects have been recognized by international interior design magazines such as AD Italia, AD Germany, AD Polska, and Elle UK. Driven by a passion for authentic architecture, she co-founded the IL CAPOLAVORO brand.
An architecture graduate of the Gdańsk University of Technology and the HAWK Hildesheim in Germany. Her love for colours was sparked by several factors – her professional experience in spacial design and creating colour palettes for European paint, clothing, and automotive brands.
In her personal brand concept, Karolina Rochman-Drohomirecka combines eclecticism with skilful interpretation. Her style is defined by careful observation, colour, respect for craftsmanship, and authentic architecture. What makes her approach stand out is the juggling of styles, in which the subtle clash of colour and texture gains depth and harmony.
In her projects, she strives to preserve the identity of places, bearing in mind the cultural and regional context.
I grew up in a home that was a true laboratory of creativity and technical ingenuity. My father was a builder and the inventor of several patents—an influence that profoundly shaped how I see the world. I watched him work from early childhood, how he combined practical engineering with an inventive approach to problem-solving.
My father, a designer of components for marine cranes, taught me how to tie reinforcement for ring beams, form roof tiles, build insulation, lay brick and plaster, and even put down floors on joists. That direct, tangible experience taught me how crucial detail and reliability are in creating space.
I also recognise a love for robust and durable goods in my grandfather’s work—he crafted furniture for our family and for clients. His workshop brimmed with timber, burr veneers and bent glass. It was a place where objects were made with passion and meticulous attention to detail; it taught me that what we make matters as much as how we make it.
Choosing architecture as my path was no coincidence. In my family, logical thinking and a drive to organise space came naturally. The ability to create structures — both in the literal and abstract meaning — was passed on from generation to generation. My brother chose mathematics; I chose architecture. Both choices came from the same inheritance: the will to systematise thought and space, and translate them into the language of formulas and rules. My approach to work, my reliability, precision and reverence for detail are the fruits of my home and the family workshops.
At my first classes at the Gdańsk University of Technology, Professor Dopierała said something that impacted me deeply: “Design is not only the object—it is also who you are.”
Designing has become a process in which I am part of the space I am shaping. Those words continue to guide my practice, reminding me that architecture is not just a profession but a means of self-expression.
I understood that what I create is not separate from me — my view of the world materialises in the spaces I invite others to.
Today, architecture is not only my work—it is my passion and my voice. It allows me to move beyond habit and create spaces with deeper meaning and emotional order. Designing is not only an intellectual process, but also an emotional one. With every project I become part of the space I create. What was instilled in me at the outset of my career shapes both my approach to design and how I see myself as an architect. I continue to deepen that understanding, knowing that what I create reflects who I am.
My PhD thesis, “ Terror with Colour in Architecture”, is an ongoing project.
The idea emerged after my second year at the Gdańsk University of Technology, when I began parallel studies at the HAWK—Architecture and FarbDesign—in Hildesheim, Germany.
I became the first architecture student at the FarbDesign department. Professor Markus Schlegel recognised a unique opportunity: to work with colour as part of the architectural design process, rather than as an afterthought applied to a finished volume.
The outcome was a unique Colour Master Plan for East Berlin — a project of social significance not only due to its scale, but also because colour became a tool for social revitalisation.
Colour delineated zones that both highlighted community identity and supported integration.
While developing colour palettes for the paint brand Caparol and for fashion and automotive companies, I witnessed how colour influences the psyche and consumer decision-making.
These two names dominate in the world of colour: the married couple Lesley Toledo and Markus Schlegel — acknowledged authorities and founders of the IIT HAWK and the FarbDesign department in Hildesheim. Together with Markus, I co-created the International Institute Trendscouting HAWK, addressing colour-based research across a broad spectrum of industries.
The scents and colours of Madrid have a special place in my imagination. My authority there — Paloma Vargas, the costume designer for the Madrid Ballet, is a master of detail; her costumes, brooches and the smallest elements have resonated with me for years in my projects. I strive for perfection in detail, often seeking how to combine materials that seem impossible to connect. This was an influence that has shaped me profoundly.
As the first architecture student at the HAWK FarbDesign, I was encouraged by Prof. Markus Schlegel to engage with colour during the architectural design process itself, not merely on the finished form. The result was the East Berlin Colour Master Plan — significant both for its scale and for positioning colour as a tool of social revitalisation. The project culminated in both publication and implementation — a pivotal experience in my career.
Again, in colour, the key figures are Lesley Toledo and Markus Schlegel—unquestioned authorities, founders of the IIT HAWK and FarbDesign Hildesheim. Together with Markus I helped to establish the International Institute Trendscouting HAWK, whose research serves colour-driven industries on a large scale.
At that time, my professional path also crossed with Jakub’s — it was Madrid that brought us together.
Brotherhood — to be close, yet far — Fr. Paweł Rochman. If I were to name my sister-soul, it would be my brother. My confidant and inspiration. A brilliant mind, a polyglot. He tends a parish forest in the Brodnica lake district in Poland, yet is also invited by French and English aristocrats to accompany their loved ones in the final moments of their life. He writes books and paints in his leisure time. He has answered the question theologians have asked for centuries: why didn’t Jesus write a book? By passion – a mathematician and artist; by love -a man of the Church. We are joined by our devotion to truth — both material and spiritual.
Experiencing spaces and buildings reminiscent of Tolkien’s times — and touching architecture through the lens of craft and tradition — it all became possible when I visited him in Oxford during his philosophy studies.
My brother remains an intellectual challenge: to dwell in the realms of perception where he lives. Our conversations are about people and their stories. He is an integrated person—close to people and the earth, and to the immaterial sphere.
Looking at his life, I understood that to do work aligned with yourself and for others requires a willingness to burn from within. To create things that matter, one must be ready to give part of oneself without a sense of loss or regret. This is how I see my work: I consent to leave an invisible spirit of place in every project — genius loci — my mark that needs no signature.
At twenty-five, unexpectedly, I underwent an accelerated apprenticeship: a year on the building site on the Swiss mountainside in the canton of Schwyz.
Day to day I worked with the local crew, moving step by step with people who had been handing down their craft for generations. Fresh out of school, looking barely of age, I was tasked with rebuilding, reconstructing, and restoring the soul of a house that had suffered years of neglect.
The building was embedded in local community life; during the renovation the contractors were literally neighbours—the local collective. It was a lesson in humility—entering a living organism, organising people around a home, understanding, and engaging. Today I can say: no construction system can surprise me or stop me.
After the “Bearded Men’s House,” nothing feels foreign or daunting. Everything can be understood and tamed regardless the style — Italian or French — every project, every dream, can be realised.
A story of over four thousand square metres of neurology clinics in Switzerland. Sixteen years ago my trajectory became closely intertwined with the growth of the Bellevue Medical Group.
With time I can say: while participating in the creation of over a dozen clinics, I accompanied their owners as their vision evolved and experienced the synergy of two worlds. On the one side, the business and the investor’s goal of building for a defined user; on the other, the aesthetic value and emotional layers that shape a character and style, in line with the style of contemporary Zurich, Basel, Rorschach, Lucerne, St. Gallen and Oerlikon.
My first project with Jakub—and the beginning of our Italian adventure. Our first construction in which we spent a full year studying the house’s history, and a shared passion that bound us to its owner. Before any concept emerged, we learned the stories of the people connected to the place — and this became the foundation for writing the house’s future.
Researching the site and discovering its spirit had a decisive impact on the project’s character and its investment value. Analysing the historical context is the element that permanently increased the property’s worth—essential to both Italian and French culture. A building rooted this context is a value for future generations. The narrative of the place is passed on, alongside with the architecture.
Personal brand and transformation—an inward journey—is a process, a path, a matter of consequence; it is the art of letting go of what has grown onto our personalities over the years.
Transformation is about reaching the essence—to what I had not dared to admit. I saw my work as it is; I saw myself—what I create, what I like, whom I want to work with—not only what I do not want. A metamorphosis has an element of the temporary—captivating, yes, but fleeting. A brand is a path: it is about how I can fully become who I am.
Today I write about transformation not only from the standpoint of personal growth. My personal brand took on special importance when I joined the AD100—the list of the most influential architects and designers in Poland and worldwide.
The creation of Il Capolavoro was driven by a few very specific reasons. It serendipitously came to life when several processes in our lives intertwined. As a married couple we have learned that we can create one soothing space for man by allowing two worlds to permeate.
It would seem that we come from two different worlds. On the one hand – architecture – powerful, monumental, volumetric, associated with Andrea Palladio. On the other – interior design – most often thought of as ethereal, individual, elusive, hidden, intimate.
In our Il Capolavoro world, the whole is more than the sum of volumetric architecture and interior design. It is more than our precisely constructed arrangement. The beauty of design lies in weaving what is “external and what is internal.”
