This is what changed my approach to interior design

I know what you’re thinking: why is that such a bad thing?

And yet that triggered me; what was it that I had missed? What did the presentation and my knowledge lack? What hadn’t I given to the client that required him to feel the need to take the proposal to his wife rather than listen to his paid professionals? What is the ‘right design’ and, most importantly, how do I demonstrate this?

The answer, I realised, was that there was no clarity on how a design impacted people in detail and emotionally. I looked around the industry, listened to very experienced colleagues, and realised that everyone was very much in the same boat. We had no knowledge about what shapes or colours or textures were the ‘right’ ones. No idea how they made us feel.

Emotions, cognitive activity and the influence on good design

The term ‘good design’ became the vanity project of the few without giving buildings and interiors a chance to have a soul, a beating heart with a zest for life to nurture all who interact with them.

Until recently, professional teams typically comprised male colleagues, clients and suppliers, and it felt that mentioning the word ‘emotions’ would mean that I was on my period and would be behaving ‘unprofessionally’.

Nurturing all parts of a being includes the emotions and cognitive activity in addition to physical health. So I have taken my time to personally put in the work, to understand emotions and cognitive activity as human tools. As this research provided more awareness and shed light on the human condition, I then moved on to the impact that interior and building designs have on us.

When designing these days, I ask clients better questions. How do they want to live in the spaces they will occupy? What kind of life do they wish to have? How do they want to feel in them?

The output of these conversations is my brief, and I use space as an enabler to help them achieve these goals.

If it is a private home, I might deal with the quality of a family’s relationships, using the design process to give them space to discuss openly and healthily.

If I am designing a commercial project such as an office, then the process brings the groups of users together, reflecting their values and relationships. Creating engagement in a workplace means designing for emotional connectivity and increased levels of familiarity.

Working with emotions allows people to feel safe enough to trust one another, to open up and make connections.

Improving happiness and wellbeing through design

Creating a design that will help users behave in a way that will increase happiness means that, as the designer, I need to understand what happiness is and what wellbeing really means. I need to understand it for myself first, and then for the people I am designing for.

There may be days when life is confusing and I see no beauty around me. I may then take time to read something beautiful or to think on a bench outside work. If time allows it, I will go to a gallery or a museum nearby and allow art, the themes behind it and the buildings containing them to do their work.

The role of art is to reflect missing parts of understanding within us and create clarity. When I stand in front of a sculpture or canvas I now know ‘I like’, it makes my heart go quiet, softer and allows me to be happy. Then I can start responding to people around me more clearly and healthily.

Space is never the answer. It is a reflection of the people in it, the nature and quality of their relationships. In my design practice today, we show an understanding of who we are designing for and the emotions they will experience for the time they walk our floors and touch our walls.

We can consciously, elegantly and quietly support how people wish to live in interiors.

This is what I would have wanted to tell the client who wished to take the proposal home to ask his wife, and after my explanations, today I would encourage him to do so.