Sat 1 Sep 2007
Inside knowledge
Times are a changing for interior design, as sustainability and space issues begin to dictate the way our homes will look in the future. Natalia Gameson rounds up the designers who are already looking towards the future to meet the challenges facing an industry poised for change.Last month, Roger Hunt talked about interior designers who get involved at the planning stage of the build project. Indeed, this seems to be the future of interior design - as properties get smaller, it's becoming more important to use space as effectively as possible, as not a square inch can be wasted.
"The ways in which a home is lived in on a day-to-day basis is at the forefront of the design process," says Kay Round, a designer and project manager at Jane Clayton & Co. "How many of us curse at not having a plug socket within easy reach of a bedside lamp or wonder why the bedroom door opens onto a fitted wardrobe?"
Hertfordshire-based firm M & Y Interiors tends to get involved with its clients at this stage; fiddling with the designs to ensure maximum liveability for the buyer. "The vast majority of architects think of cost first and foremost," says the firm's owner Mandy Engelsman. "We generally have to ask for a better quality finish, more plug points, as well as ensuring they're located in the right places, and advise on the best places to put windows and doors at the design stage. Developers should spend up to four per cent of the sale value on their show home designs, but this doesn't always happen - estate agents are always telling them to put more money in the kitty to fund this, but it rarely happens!"
Similarly, housebuilders should note that as much research needs to go into the interior design as on planning the type of development, says Dawn Kitchener, managing director of Connections in Design. "The needs of local people need to be thoroughly understood so the interior can be tailored to fit. When a developer asks us to create an interior for a scheme, we look at the purchasers' profiles within the local community and take a detailed brief of the layout and exterior visuals of the property."
Esther Bond, managing director of Designs For All Occasions, says it's often vital to hold consultations on design up to a year prior to installation. "It's important that all the design elements work together as a cohesive package. We get involved months ahead of actual fittings in specifying finishes and features for the whole interior. At TA Fisher's Grade II listed Purley Magna development we began the process 18 months before the properties came to market - our brief there included sorting features and finishes such as doors, paints, tiling and flooring."
Similarly, developers should note that buyers don't always want fitted home entertainment appliances on display, says Neville Johnson, chairman of design firm Johnson & Johnson. "With today's growing market for media rooms, people are looking for alternatives of housing these gadgets and gismos into a useable living space. The simplest way of hiding unsightly metal boxes and cables is to integrate the kit into pieces of furniture. On one of our recent projects, for example, we framed the area around the TV with panels, which cleverly concealed a surfeit of wires to keep the space clean and uncluttered."
Eco-friendly design is something developers nationwide are becoming increasingly interested in promoting.
But the responsibility for producing good sustainable design lies first and foremost with the designers themselves. "It is our duty as designers to consider the eco option each and every time," says Suna Lock, managing director of Suna Interior Design. "As the government brings the importance of using sustainable materials more and more into everyday dialogue, housebuilders will find there is a significantly advantageous marketing perspective in commissioning eco show-home designs, in addition to gaining increased support from local authorities by using renewable materials at the front end of the build process.
"From a design point of view, it's an exciting time for these changes - sustainable alternatives are no longer the ugly sister in the selection process. But it is not only in a new-build situation that the designer can be ecologically responsible - the reuse of other features within a refurbishment scheme is an equally valid way of saving on resources. At Garden Court, a refurbishment project we worked on for Revurban in Birmingham which transformed 12 former Grade II listed Alms Houses and a warden's lodge into 29 apartments, we noted that the existing doors were not only reusable, but could be used as a pivotal part of the marketing for the site."
Similarly, Vogue Interiors strives to continually search for new and innovative products that have the added bonus of eco-friendliness, says Di Hearnshaw, the firm's managing director. "Wherever possible, we try to be aware of ongoing climate change issues. All the wood flooring we supply and install comes from managed forests, while all the APT underlay we provide comes from recycled materials."
Britannia Developments recently launched its Tempo development at Roundhay Park in Leeds with a show apartment bedecked from top to bottom in eco fixtures and fittings, manufactured and made from recycled and renewable materials. Here, the firm raided the design toolbox of Sarah Braham, who runs Interhouse Design.
Britannia wanted the scheme to act as a design blueprint viewers could adapt for their own homes, says Liz Green, the firm's sales and marketing director. "Here, we wanted to show purchasers that good design can also be green, to provide them with ideas and inspiration on what they can do to reduce their carbon footprint. I think visitors will see that sustainable interiors are both easy on the eye, and easy on the environment."
Featuring carpets made from recycled bottles, cork flooring and biodegradable fabrics made from bamboo that appear velvet to the unsuspecting eye, the design was part of Britannia's Eco-plus programme, a tool the firm has devised to help to reduce the standard carbon emissions of its homes, including the building process, by over five per cent more than the government's 20 per cent industry-wide demand. "The carpets are manufactured from some of the millions of plastic bottles discarded daily in the US, because they're made with top quality polyethylene terephthalate (PET) resins, making this recycled product superior to the lower grades of synthetic fibres used in making other brands of carpet yarns," adds Green. "PET bottles are sorted, ground into fine chips and then cleaned. After that, the chips are melted, extruded into fibre and spun into carpet yarn."
Similarly, Jane Clayton & Company worked on Lincoln Grove, Kingerlee Homes' flagship eco scheme in Bladon, Oxfordshire. Taking the locally sourced wood, stone and slate materials deployed throughout the build process as design inspiration, the firm chose to place a wood-burning stove at the heart of the open-plan living area downstairs and decorated the interior in colours inspired by the English countryside to complement the honey colour of the Cotswold stone and blue slate roof tiles of the exterior. "Wood, particularly, is such an inspiring material," says designer Beth Scott, who worked on the scheme. "It gains a patina with time, getting better and better as it ages."
"The show house looks fantastic," adds Nick Twist, Kingerlee's land director. "The books provided by Beth in the show home range from 'Carbon Counter' to 'Eco Paints', which shows excellent attention to detail, while the waste-paper bin in the study bedroom was made of recycled paper."
Kerry-Jane Interiors recently worked on an eco scheme for Inspired Developments' new show home on Heywood Road in Prestwich, Manchester that also used green items of furniture and accessories to showcase the top sustainable living products on the market. "We wanted the design scheme to reflect the environmental credentials of the house," says Kerry-Jane Tornetta, the firm's owner. "All the wood we use is sourced from British-grown trees, so we spread Benchmark's furniture throughout the house. To really showcase good sustainable design, we used a stunning handcrafted table designed by Julius Angus of Old Kitchen, which was made from the recycled melamime of old kitchen doors and worktops.
Derek Taylor, presenter of ITV's 60 Minute Makeover and managing director of interior design company Ishoka, says this new, green wave of enthusiasm has helped his company to think outside the box. "Whereas before we simply followed the latest trends from the Milan and Cologne trade shows, we now ask a lot more questions about our suppliers - where is it from, how is it made, etc. Although, of course, if the product has zero emissions but looks like an old potato sack hanging up on a window, it won't do anyone any favours."
Taylor recently bedecked an eco property for George Wimpey. Designed by Millennium Dome and Pompidou Centre architect Lord Rogers, the sustainable properties had to be shown off using an eco-friendly show home. "Developers are trying to evoke a holistic approach in the buying of new homes," Taylor says. "Not only must the build be virtually carbon-emission-free, the interior fit-out must also follow the same ethics." The project featured a range of all things green, from felt tablemats, low-energy lamps made from recycled aluminium, to a keyboard and mouse made from bamboo and a car tyre respectively.
Young and exciting design is always welcome, and something the industry certainly cannot do without. Kate Letteriello, second-series winner of Channel 5 show Interior Rivalry is a particularly bright new addition to the circuit. Awarded a £50,000 prize to set up her own interior design business, Artspace Interior Design, by programme presenter Ann Maurice, Letteriello is particularly keen to get into show home design.
"My background is in this anyway, and it's certainly an area of design I have always particularly enjoyed," Letteriello says. "I've got lots of new ideas for the industry - I'm convinced that green has to be the way forward for show home design. I'm going to be putting a sustainable interior design package together soon for housebuilders who want their show home designs to complement their sustainable build programme, so watch this space."
Similarly, home staging is likely to become increasingly popular in the future as land gets more expensive and budgets drop accordingly. Anita Kenna, director of the Home Staging Network, who works in tandem with Philippa Hunt of Hunt Interior Design, recently launched showhomes.org.uk, a national directory of independent home staging businesses to offer an alternative approach to show home design. "Market forces and increasing material costs can have an impact on the effectiveness of smaller businesses," says Hunt. "This is precisely where we can help - our facility provides online access to businesses who can provide cost-effective but stunning show homes at a fraction of the price.
Cutting design time costs by carefully sourcing furniture, fabrics and wallpaper, all members of the network offer a flexible service and can tailor show home requirements to suit, adds Kenna. "For example, one of our members in the northern region is propertypresentation.com. Here, they will supply projects ranging from a simple view home to a fully accessorised lifestyle from as little as £3,000."
Last, but certainly not least, as housing associations grow in prominence and status, the interior design world is soon set to come a bidding to these worthy institutions in drives to win contracts to kit out affordable and key-worker show homes and apartments. When visiting Oakmayne Properties' O-Central development in Elephant and Castle recently, I found it hard to spot the difference between the affordable unit and the one listed on the open market.
Designs For All Occasions already boasts a range of clients in the social housing sector. "It's not uncommon for us to be involved in mixed-tenure developments, where the developer is building for both the private sector and the housing association market," says Esther Bond. "In my experience, the expectations of purchasers and occupiers in both sectors are equally high. Very often now, you will find doctors and the like will opt for such properties, where more flexible rental and purchasing options are available to them.
"We've just finished working on an installation for Metropolitan Home Ownership in Dagenham. The largest proportion of purchasers, who can buy via shared ownership or outright sale, or renters, will be families, so the show house had to reflect this target market. Our brief was to do a mainly white colour scheme, with accents of black and red, so we took the scheme on a slightly oriental journey with inspiration taken from the Banyan Tree Ringha Hotel in Shangri-la, China, to create something the viewer wouldn't expect."
First published in Show House Magazine September 2007.
The greatest care has been taken to ensure accuracy but some information contained within this article may have changed since it was first published.
Posted by Natalia Gameson
in Artspace Interior Design, Connections in Design, Designs For All Occasions, Features, Home Staging Network, Interhouse Design, Ishoka, Jane Clayton & Co., Johnson & Johnson, Kerry Jane Interiors, M & Y Interiors, Suna Interior Design, Tara Larkin, Vogue Interiors on Sat 1 Sep 2007
Have your say and comment on this article