One to watch: Manchester’s Youth Studio comes of age

As the name suggests, there’s something of a renegade spirit about Manchester interior design practice Youth Studio. It’s a spirit that’s propelled them since day one, when co-founders Liam McGroarty and Oliver Collinge made their mark pitching for a 500-plus apartment scheme against eight established studios, armed with a stack of red baseball caps that read ‘Make Manchester Great Again’. It was, they admit, a ‘totally naive’ riff on a famously divisive slogan – but the tongue-in-cheek gimmick paid off. They walked out of the boardroom with their first major win – and the beginnings of an ambitious new design studio.

Youth Studio: ‘Manchester gave us the space to fail and figure it out'

McGroarty and Collinge first met while studying interior design at Manchester School of Art, on an interior design course that leaned heavily into conceptual thinking rather than technical training. 'We didn’t actually learn the more technical stuff that we probably should have,' they recall. 'But it was great for developing ideas.'

The pair gravitated toward each other and began spending long hours working in the department’s ‘think tanks’, collaborating competitively on separate projects. Their shared mindset and ambition quickly cemented the foundation for what would become Youth Studio.

Founded in 2016, Youth is now known for interiors that fuse raw materiality with a sense of refined imperfection – spaces that feel grounded, but always with a slightly industrial edge, whether it’s a luxury hotel or a stripped-back retail store. From the outset, McGroarty and Collinge rejected the conventional route of middleweight roles and incremental promotions. Instead, they taught themselves on the job – starting with side projects, then landing a veterinary hospital in Saudi Arabia that gave them the financial freedom to leave their day jobs and set up their own studio in Salford, just two years out of university.

That sense of creative freedom – and resistance to being pigeon-holed – continues to shape the way they work. ‘Manchester gave us the space to fail and figure it out. There was less competition and less pressure than in London,’ Collinge reflects. ‘We’re proud of our northern roots, but we never wanted to be a cliché of “Manchester design”.‘

The studio has scaled up and down over the past decade, recently choosing to stay small and selective, prioritising creative autonomy over growth for its own sake. Today Youth is a team of five, based in Manchester, with projects across the UK and Italy. 'Clients come to us because they want us,' McGroarty explains. 'We found that our USP is being hands-on.'

They describe their approach as driven by feeling rather than trend – creating spaces that prioritise atmosphere as much as aesthetics. Travel and real-world research play a big part. Trips to Antwerp, Milan and Copenhagen have fuelled new ideas, and they collect references ‘like magpies’, drawing not just from interiors but from fashion, film, food and place.

For McGroarty and Collinge, it’s not about building an empire – it’s about building a body of work that holds together, project by project. ‘We're not trying to be everything to everyone,’ they say. 'We just want to design places we’d want to be.’

Youth Studio: five projects to know

Hyll Hotel

The latest addition to Youth Studio’s portfolio is Hyll, a country retreat set within a 16th-century manor house in the North Cotswolds. The brief was to create guest rooms and public spaces that feel quiet, elemental, and deeply rooted in place. Guided by a philosophy of subtraction over addition, Youth employed an earthy palette of stone, timber and linen to reflect the surrounding landscape. The spaces are intentionally pared back to slow the pace and sharpen the senses, inviting guests to reconnect with nature, time and self.

Voodoo Running

For cult running brand Voodoo’s first physical store, Youth designed a space that goes beyond retail – doubling as a community hub for runners. The 80 sq m space is designed to capture the energy of movement and endurance, with a raw yet inviting aesthetic.

Adanola

Youth’s ongoing collaboration with sportswear label Adanola has seen the studio create a series of retail environments that balance warmth and minimalism, combining timber, stainless steel and stone. The curved details nod to classic sporting environments, while the stripped-back layouts make room for both product and pause.

Sorella

Located on the outskirts of Manchester, Italian restaurant Sorella draws inspiration from the Pugliese trattorias discovered on the studio’s research trips to southern Italy. Here, Youth created a moody, intimate setting using a material palette of stone, wood, and marble layered with candlelight, textured surfaces, antique furniture, and bespoke freehand typography.

Arthur House

For workplace project Arthur House, Youth Studio reimagined a 1963 modernist landmark by Cruickshank & Seward. The brief was to honour the white-concrete building’s original brutalist character – monolithic, restrained, and functional – while layering in tactile details such as warm engineered wood and soft lighting, and carefully choreographed circulation.

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