Martine Paquin

Principal

Martine Paquin's design training started with a natural pull toward sculpture and craft, and carried her through design school and graduate architecture study. Over her first years in practice, that instinct kept pulling her toward the interior side of the work: materials, light, how a room actually gets lived in, until she shifted her focus to interior design full time, a move that let her follow both the creative and technical sides of the work at once.

As a Principal at Y.A. studio, Martine leads the firm's interior design work. When an early affordable housing project came through the practice, she helped grow that focus into a core part of what Y.A. studio does — work she still feels good about: designing beautiful, livable spaces for the people who need them most, and being part of the solution for a better city.

Her design philosophy holds steady across project types: clean lines, natural materials, abundant light, and spaces built for how people actually live rather than for a passing trend. For multifamily and senior housing, that means designing around a community's daily needs. For private clients, it means understanding a family's site, habits, and lifestyle before a single material gets chosen.

For Martine, the best day on any affordable housing project isn't the ribbon-cutting — it's move-in day, watching someone see their new home for the first time.