As résumés go, Julia Sobrepeña King’s is tough to beat. Over the course of nearly two decades, she cultivated her craft in the offices of five of the most influential design firms working today—those of Kelly Wearstler, Michael S. Smith, Waldo Fernandez, Commune, and Charles de Lisle—all of them AD100. Eight months ago, King struck out on her own, hanging a shingle for Studio Roene in San Francisco. (She is photographed at her new office.) “After years looking through someone else’s eyes, I finally had the opportunity to articulate my own vision,” says King, who was born in the Philippines and moved to San Francisco in 1996. The designer’s inheritance from her formidable mentors becomes apparent in her penchant for blending disparate styles and sensibilities. “I like mixing seemingly contradictory colors, textures, and forms—things that spark conversation—and then finding harmony in the differences,” King explains. “The question for me is how, in the age of Instagram and Pinterest, do you create something genuinely new, perhaps a little weird but always livable?” King is currently addressing that challenge in residential projects throughout California. “First and foremost, a house must be inviting and casual,” she opines. “If a client doesn’t feel completely at ease, I haven’t done my job.” studioroene.com —Mayer Rus