Speakers

 Lauren Ashley Allan is the founder and creative force behind her eponymous interior design firm. With over two decades of experience, she  is an alumna of both Kelly Wearstler and Nate Berkus’s firms. Her diverse portfolio spans boutique hotels, restaurants, retail spaces, and luxury yachts. In 2020, she launched her own firm, now based in Illinois, where she and her team create high-end residential spaces for discerning clients around the world. In just five years, the firm has earned significant recognition, including being named a top design firm in Chicago by Architectural Digest. 

Lauren believes design is storytelling. A home should be a reflection of its inhabitants, the places they’ve traveled to, and the objects and ideas that have inspired them. Lauren and her team curate each unique space, pushing boundaries and challenging traditional rules of design and product. She loves seeing her sketches and ideas come to life with her clients through an inspiring and collaborative process. Juxtapositions are at the heart of her philosophy: mixing technology with craft, modern with traditional, emerging artists with vintage flea market finds, neutrals with bold textures and patterns. Increasingly, Lauren explores the integration of artificial intelligence as a tool, enhancing the design process without replacing the intuitive, human element at its core. She and her team play with the quiet tension between spaces that are both poetic and unexpected, yet firmly rooted in practicality and purpose. Each project is grounded in history and culture, combined with a vision that looks forward; pushing limits, shaping philosophies, and redefining the future of living. For Lauren, design is an intuitive art, driven by passion and the power of connection.

Lauren holds a BFA in Interior Design from Miami University, a Master of Architecture (M.Arch) from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), and advanced studies in “The Future of Design + Artificial Intelligence” at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). She actively supports the design community and lives in Illinois with her husband and their two children.