AIA, LEED AP, CID – Principal Architect, Founding Partner
René Clawson's LinkedIn profile
René has big ideas….like starting Clawson Architects in 2000. She harnessed her intuitive sense of style and love of art and design into a career and this thriving architectural practice with her husband and partner, Marvin Clawson. It’s a life’s work so fulfilling that she can’t imagine doing anything else. Since launching the firm, René has completed hundreds of extraordinary, elegant residential restoration, addition, and new construction projects.
René loves a challenge….she sees each new project as a unique design and problem-solving opportunity. She’s been known to say, “If it were easy, someone would have fixed it by now.” And yet, time and time again, her final design solution is so clever and deceptively simple, it looks like it could have – or should have -- always been there.
René connects with her clients…first by asking the questions that reveal clients’ true needs. Her innovative design solutions are informed by her own real-life experiences: juggling the professional demands of her career and business with her personal responsibilities as a parent and her passion for an active life that includes entertaining, volunteering, sailing and skiing. Her communication skills and attention to customer needs – from the initial phone inquiry through all stages of design, construction, move-in, and thereafter – create satisfied, repeat clients. “She ‘gets’ us,” clients have said over and over.
René looks at the big picture…and creates beautiful, efficient spaces tailored to the practical, contemporary needs of each client while honoring the historic context of the home’s original construction and the larger environment. Delighting clients with architectural and interior design that delivers more than they ever imagined possible is standard operating procedure for René.
René speaks out…..as an active volunteer and leader in professional, business and community organizations. She is frequently invited to speak about small business, sustainability, and design. René has been a guest jury member reviewing design projects in the interior design program at the Fashion Institute of Technology and a guest speaker at the new Michael Graves College | Robert Busch School of Design | School of Public Architecture , the American Institute of Architects — Newark and Suburban Chapter and New Jersey State level. Recently, René has been on the speaking circuit for the Kitchen and Bath industry speaking at various chapters of the National Kitchen and Bath Association around the country as well as their annual trade show KBIS in 2019 as one of the “Voices from the Industry” . She has also shared her experience with the AIA Emerging Professionals also known as EPIC, the Girl Scouts of America , Junior League and the Maplewood Chamber of Commerce.
René is committed to community… As President for 4 years, an active board member since 2005 of The Maplewood Chamber of Commerce, René assisted in getting the town to pass an ordinance allowing home based businesses, served on the Springfield Alliance Partnerships Design Standards Board and was a member of the Task Force to look into locations for the new Police Station in Maplewood and then along with other Chamber members and citizens successfully lobbied the township not to displace active businesses with the use of eminent domain in locating the town’s new police station by proposing alternative sites and bring the businesses into the spotlight. She assisted the principal, of the local school where her children attended with bringing their bathrooms up to date, and the PTA with developing their vision for the library’s new look as well as lending the entire team to assist the graduating class with the construction of their Bird Houses Legacy Project. As an avid sailor, René also served her Yacht Club as both a youth advisor for ten years and board member for three where she was praised for her business acumen and consulted often with regards to the facilities.
René likes to have fun… When René is not working she can be found on the slopes skiing, on the water sailing or trying to hone her skills in her newly discovered passion for pickleball.
René is a Licensed Architect in the states of New Jersey and New York, a LEED Accredited Professional and is also a Certified Interior Designer in New Jersey.
Return to PEOPLE