Araceli Usón trained as an interior designer at the Escuela Internacional de Diseñadores Interioristas y Arte de Catalunya (DIAC-EIADE), graduating in 1989. Even before completing her studies, she was already at work on projects at Estudio DSAN in Barcelona, alongside Estrella Salietti and Mª José Ankli. That first stage was followed by more than two decades — from 1989 to 2011 — at AM Asociados, developing renovation, full-scope residential, retail, and hospitality projects: the years in which she built much of the judgment that defines her work today.
In 2012 she founded her own studio in Sant Cugat del Vallès, A! Emotional living & work. There she develops residential and professional projects with a single aim: that functionality and beauty coexist without hierarchy, and that every element of a space speak to the whole. The result is interiors built with noble materials, soft palettes, and sustained attention to texture, conceived to endure beyond the moment’s trends. Her portfolio includes residential renovations in the Barcelona neighborhoods of Sagrada Família, Tres Torres, and Gran Via, and commercial spaces such as the Marc Cain stores and the headquarters of COGAC (Col·legi Oficial de Gestors Administratius de Catalunya).
In 2014 she founded estudioDOM together with Elisabet Sanuy and Varvara Shabardina, partners with whom she brings more than thirty years of combined experience. The studio develops comprehensive residential interior design projects, from concept through to turnkey delivery, with a client list that includes international owners of homes in Barcelona and the Costa Brava.
The method, in both studios, is the same: listen before proposing. Every project begins with a dialogue with the client, in which needs, personalities, and ways of living or working are translated into concrete spatial solutions, supported by a multidisciplinary team — interior designers, architects, construction specialists — that carries the process through from start to finish. Usón sums up this working ethic in three words: honesty, rigor, and innovation.