Tag Archives: decor

What’s Next in Design? Part 2

What do you want to do next?

Finding the balance between what’s next and what’s too far ahead – that’s where the challenge lies. Finding what will make your environment, your place, your space, feel fresh for years to come, minimizing cost while maximizing long-term fulfillment can be done by just looking around.

Another place to look for inspiration:

 2. Economics and Social Trends

The Western economy has been in a rough state for a while now, with a few areas seeing some gentle growth, most areas seeing a plateau trend, and most areas (especially in the U.S. and Europe) still experiencing a drop. It makes sense for us to adjust our needs to accommodate our new reality.

Residential design will be continuing to create more at-home office space, and virtual office space. There is a huge social cost of lost time to rush hour traffic and long commutes that I don’t believe we are willing to do for much longer. I believe we will see more merging of urban and rural styles in outlying communities as more of us stay closer to home to work and play, without wanting to completely give up an urban lifestyle.

Some call the trend, “nesting” – using stable and solid forms with large items in nostalgic and subdued colours and textures. Looking to the past, and using natural materials in an honest way. Yearning for the security of childhood, however, I think we will see more pops of playful colour, creating paradoxical, eclectic interiors with energy and tension between the neutrals and the brights, the patterns, textures and solids.

Recycling, upcycling and a “make do and mend” mentality will continue to grow. A growing number of design professionals are achieving their “LEED” certification (www.gbci.org) along with the NCIDQ (www.ncidq.org). Even on a small scale, reusing materials is not  only socially responsible, it looks and feels really good with the right application – imagine your grandfather’s cozy, memory-filled fishing sweater remade into a throw cushion for your family room couch. Maintaining and nurturing connections to family and community in this way reinforce feelings of comfort.

Lastly, social consciousness remains a growing movement. A great example is the popularity of “Tom’s” shoes in North America. For every pair of shoes sold, the company donates a pair to a child in need. I am waiting to see where Interiors will take this idea and run with it – perhaps a line of home goods raising funds for Habitat for Humanity (www.habitat.ca) that could be sold at their ReStore as well as large chain stores across North America? I would love to see your comments below about design companies and their commitments to social change.

Incorporating these concepts in your home, office or retail space will mean you’ll be happier there, longer – and you’ll have better resale/release value when you choose to relocate.

Giving new meaning to :”Going to the Dental Surgeon”…

There’s a great new project by an award-winning design firm in Washington, D.C. So great, in fact, that they offer regular weekly design tours. An architectural office? A designers showhome? Nope. It’s the offices of Dr. Virginia Lee, Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon.

Dr. Lee’s offices are described as as: “like the stark beauty of an orchid…transformed into an exquisite example of clean lines and functionality as simple and refined as the orchid itself, and has to be seen to be believed”.

Capital Oral & Facial Surgery Center by FORMA Design, Inc. Photo Gallery

Dr. Lee wanted the design team, FORMA Design Inc., to create a calming space for her clients. “I wanted to create an experience of aesthetic calm and tranquil happiness for myself, my staff and my patients,” says Dr. Lee, ”there is something about being in a beautiful space that just does something to the soul”.

Capital Oral & Facial Surgery Center by FORMA Design, Inc. Photo Gallery

Kudos to FORMA design for a beautiful result.

What you like to wear – is where you like to be.

Knowing who you are and what you really like, takes some inspired introspection. Daily bombardment of glossy interior design images can dilute what we think we know about ourselves, making it hard to make the places where we live and work better places to be.Your home should reflect you, not the person whose house is in the magazine. There is one place in your home that be used as a shortcut to understanding your own style. Ironically, it is probably also the smallest “room” in your home.

It is your closet.

What you choose to put on day after day is a pretty good indication of your preferences. It is what you are choosing to be the most closely surrounded by for most of your day. It is both a public expression of what feels best next to your skin (like a cashmere sweater set you wear to work), and a personal expression with those things worn only at home (like those ratty – but oh so comfy – slippers under your bed).

yellow and grey again

yellow and grey again (Photo credit: keeping it real)

What you are wearing throughout your day is probably who you want your peers to think you are. What you wear at home is probably who you really are. Combine these two concepts in your home.

Take your favorite clothes out of your closet. No, not the ones you love on the hanger but never actually wear (not even the impractical, impossibly awesome stilettos on your shoe rack)…you want to choose the clothes you wear often. Pick the outfits that make you feel great when you wear them.

Think about what it is about the clothes that you love so much. It could be the fit, the color, the feel and texture, the sheen – why are they lovingly worn so often?  Why do you pull them out of your closet? Chances are, there is a simple explanation: the clothes feel authentic. The are true to who you are.

If you are pulling out sweatpants and t-shirts, with a closet full of tailored clothes you wear sometimes (but wish you wore more often), I think that your interior design should reflect a more casual, layered, and comfortable approach, married with an overall underlying clean and tailored look with a tight palette. Create your home as a hybrid of who you are, and who you want to be – it will result in a feel that is comfortable for you.

Design concepts: 80 percent of what you wear all the time, 15 percent of what you wish you wore more often, and five percent of the favorite collectible non-worn items (adding a little accessory detail that represents those awesome stilettos – they ARE in your closet because you love looking at them, really, after all).

Dress your home to fit you.

Useful and Beautiful.

“Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful”.

-William Morris

Defining that which is just useful in contrast to that which is just beautiful is surprisingly difficult to do. Beauty can be defined as “a quality present in a thing or person that gives intense pleasure or deep satisfaction to the mind…” .(www.dictionary.reference.com).

Utility is defined as having a beneficial or practical use. Surrounding yourself with beauty, is useful in itself because it is what makes one comfortable, happy and healthy.

Beauty IS useful.

Comments?

What’s Your Tribe?

When one thinks of a tribe in modern terms, most of us do not believe we are a part of one. Is tribalism dead in the modern world? Or has the paradigm simply shifted? How does it affect how we live?

Tribalism, as defined by the Harvard scholar E. O. Wilson (in Newsweek magazine), is alive and well in our culture. He writes: “Modern groups are psychologically equivalent to the tribes of ancient history…our drive to join a group – and fight for it – is what makes us human”. Designing the environments – the location, the style, the mood –  we choose to surround ourselves with, is no different. Where we choose to live, work and play is a public reflection of our tribe. It is a huge part of who you are. Don’t choose your tribe by default.

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Peter Gurnow and Gavin Brown, artists, in their Melbourne apartment. http://theselby.com/3_6_11_PeterCurnowGavinBrown/

Be honest with yourself. There’s a disconnect for most of us between who we are, who we want to be, and how we allow ourselves to be portrayed in the world. Many of my clients have hired me to help them plan their spaces because they initially tried to be all things to all the people that mattered to them- resulting in schizophrenic, unhealthy environments. If you are designing a home – a home, not a house – you’ve got to sit down and think about who you are, not who you are trying to impress. Knowing yourself and your tribes (yes, there are usually more than one) is instrumental in knowing what feels healthy and comfortable for you in your home.

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Dorothee Schumacher at home in Germany shot for online magazine mb! by Mercedes-Benz. http://www.theselby.com

To be honest is sometimes unnerving – admitting they belong (or want to belong) to the Louboutin – Louis Vuitton -Escalade – silk sheets – closet AC/DC fan Tribe. Or the Lululemon – Uggs – Starbucks coffee by the side of a soggy soccer pitch – washable cotton – ultrasuede chesterfield Tribe.  Or the Marines, the Canucks, the Gun Club, the scrapbooking club, or any number of Tribes available for “membership”. However, finding your tribes, and how they interlock, is paramount to creating a home you love, as well as a place you are comfortable sharing with your loved ones in whatever tribe they subscribe to. It’s your social identity. Social currency.

Once you know what your tribes are, and/or what you want them to be, how do you move forward? Identify that which represents you. Other tribes will try to tell you what you are supposed to want. For example, high ceilings. Why do we all want high ceilings? Be aware of why you want them. It it to show status? Is it for improved air flow in a warmer climate? Maximizing light penetration?

If you live in Canada and belong to a tribe that covets warm, fuzzy relationships, hot cocoa and sofas you sink into for lively conversation with friends, I would argue that an eight foot ceiling suits you best. Eight foot ceilings, smaller, dedicated room floor plans, tactile finishes like nubbly cotton fabrics, layered lighting with plenty of drama, and meaningful, small scale vignettes of accessories that have a story to tell.

Choose your tribes wisely.

It’s where you live. Make it yours.

The Vancouver real estate market is, right now, one of the hottest markets in the world.  In terms of unaffordability, it is ranked in the top three – alongside Sydney, Australia and Hong Kong. Crazy, I know.

In response, small-scale residential builders and designers have, for a few years now, been creating spec houses en masse to accommodate the demand. Houses with tried-and-true floor plans with neutral, universally acceptable finishes (read: beige). Reading through the real estate guide, it says again and again: “soaring ceilings”… “granite countertops”…”stainless steel”…”hand-set tile” (wait a minute – how else would you set tile? However, I digress…).

Yes, these homes have appeal. Yes, they are probably good for resale.

But are you buying a house, or a home?

When you’re looking for a place to settle down, to enjoy the life you have worked so hard for, to feel like you are where you belong – you have to consider who you are. What’s interesting to you? What catches your eye when you are driving down the street (hopefully nothing because you are focussed on driving right? – okay, lets say walking).  That… is what inspires you. That…is what can make your home, yours.

Inspiration can be found anywhere. Whittle down your preferences and select those that make you feel good. Is it the look of the mossy, cornflower blue gardening shed surrounded by a cornucopia of red poppies down the street? Is it the memory of the texture and size your nubbly, fuzzy, red teddy bear you had as a child? Or is it the new purse your best friend brought to Starbucks the other day (yes, as superficial as that sounds, I have before been inspired by a bag. Mind you, it was a pretty brilliant bag).

Is it the smell of vanilla, or the smell of cedar burning outdoors that brings you home? The feel of velvet, or the feel of a jute rug on a patio in Maui? Think on it. Think outside of the trends, the “season’s hottest” whatever, outside of what the world tells you you are supposed to like.

As soon as you can identify what makes you happy, you’re ready to take that spec home you just bought from “beige” to “brilliant”. Run with your concept, and make your home, yours.