Maria Speake (House & Garden's Interior Designer of the Year 2019) and Adam Hills met while studying architecture in Glasgow. They moved to London in 1997 and opened the Retrouvius warehouse on a dilapidated stretch of the Harrow Road. Lovers of salvaged materials soon began to beat a path to their door, and this led to the establishment of their design practice, which refurbishes domestic interiors using salvaged materials to entirely unique effect.