ANGELA RODRIGUEZ, ASID, NCIDQ, LEED AP

PRINCIPAL INTERIOR DESIGNER

Angela is an award-winning Interior Designer and the founder of Space as Art. Throughout her extensive, 15-year portfolio of work across a wide variety of project types and scales, she enjoys working with clients on spaces that are each uniquely memorable, a passion to create, and an experience to inhabit. Angela is NCIDQ Certified, Licensed by the Florida Board of Architecture & Interior Design, a LEED Accredited Professional, and a Professional Member of ASID.

First trained in drawing at an early age by her grandfather, a fine artist at heart and sign painter by trade, Angela began pouring herself into full-time art classes at Moore College of Art and Design in Philadelphia each summer beginning from the age of 10, studying everything from painting to photography (“the old school way,” she says, “black and white, happily spending hours in a darkroom”) to sculpture and metalsmithing where she first began to explore art in three dimensions, although admittedly dangerous with a blowtorch. It was also while living in Philadelphia that Angela first grasped the capabilities of interior design as an artistic medium, and “more than that, a vehicle to create an uplifting human experience” at the iconic, theatrically designed restaurants of Stephen Starr.

“I REMEMBER THE VERY FIRST TIME I FELT CONSCIOUSLY INSPIRED BY AN INTERIOR, AND THE RESULTING DRIVE TO CREATE THEM,” SHE SAYS, “I VISITED A RESTAURANT CALLED TANGERINE IN 2001, AND I RECALL FEELING SO MOVED, JUST TRANSPORTED. THE LIGHTING WAS MOODY, THEATRICAL. THERE WERE LITTLE CANDLES EVERYWHERE, PEEKING OUT OF WALLS.  I SAW VISUAL COMPOSITIONS WITHIN THE LARGER CANVAS, VIGNETTES HINTING AT SPACES BEYOND. THE DESIGN AND THE FOOD WERE SEXY, MYSTERIOUS, FULL OF VIBRANCY AND LIFE. THIS WENT BEYOND DECORATION, THIS WAS THE CREATION OF EXPERIENCE, AND I CRAVED MORE OF IT.”

.Not long afterward, Angela made the decision to transfer from her intended English major at a liberal arts college in the Northeast and move to Florida in favor of the warm, sunny weather and an education in design. After graduating from the prestigious Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Interior Design, academic honors, and multiple design awards under her belt, Angela eagerly went to work at the Miami and Orlando offices of some of the world’s top architecture and interior design firms. During these years designing for five-star resorts and other large projects across the globe, she developed a vision of one day bringing this world-class experience acquired working in large firms to the foundation of an innovative, boutique-sized interior design studio on the coast of Florida.

In 2009, Space as Art was born, named for the philosophy Angela had cultivated towards the design of interior space as an artistic medium. Today, the studio has grown into one of the top commercial interior design firms in Florida, and has garnered multiple design awards. “I am blessed beyond belief to have the ability to do something I love, positively impact the lives of others, and to work with inspiring people every day,” she says. When not designing, Angela enjoys being outdoors on a beautiful day, and spending time with her husband, Pablo, and their two little boys at home.