Commercial Interior Design

Throughout my whole life I have used design on an elementary level, as I enjoy making things with my hands. I am a practising sculptor and installation artist and I also love fabricating vintage motorcycles. Upon completing a Bachelor of Fine Arts, I knew I enjoyed utilising spaces for art, but found myself wanting to be able to create the spaces. When I heard about the Billy Blue course I knew I would learn to create and design unique spaces and interiors with purpose.

As a commercial interior designer, I am most passionate about the idea that people can be completely submerged in my design and truly experience a space as I intended it. I love creating the look and feeling of a space knowing that the end result will work on a practical level.

Right now we are facing many environmental issues that are slowly killing our planet and in return, us. Sustainability is a challenge in any design but it must be incorporated into all design streams.

As designers, we are helping to shape the way tomorrow is made, looks and feels. I personally find this challenge interesting and it definitely influences my own practice. Currently, through a class project I am designing a five-star boutique resort offering located on Magnetic Island, Queensland. The resort is a food lover's destination showing visitors how to grow, harvest and cook organic produce. The accommodation is a self-sufficient and carbon-neutral site that responds to the unique topography of the island.

In a unit called Digital Worlds, we explored the concepts of alternate and augmented realities. Many students found this topic challenging due to the huge difference between a digital realm and a real space.

Our brief was to design an interactive object that would link us from the real world to the digital world. This unique brief challenged our conventions of what space is, and how to design for it. It allowed us insight into the directions that future advancements in technology will take interior design.

I think I was always interested in design, even from a young age. I was almost certainly influenced by my family members, who were also very creative and enjoyed art and design. I came to Billy Blue after studying a year of Industrial Design at UNSW. My main reason for choosing Commercial Interiors is that I like the fact that an environment is something that impacts people.

I love that design is an everyday occurrence. From the moment you wake up, all of the things around you have been designed by someone to make your day more enjoyable. Whether through the experience of a space, the use of the product or the response to a piece of visual communication, design affects everyone. It creates conversation as we all experience design differently and thus develop our own opinions of it. It is interesting to see how people experience design and how the designer can manipulate those feelings and emotions towards a space, product or brand.

Whilst doing some research for one of my most recent projects, I happened on kinetic sculptures. Kinetic sculptures are mechanical structures often used to replicate movement in nature or everyday life. In Germany, BMW has used a kinetic sculpture to model the form of one of its cars. I grew a love so strong for some of these sculptures that I decided I wanted to use one in my design of a retail environment for Melissa Shoes.

The result was a large wall display system that senses when customers walk towards it and ripples out to greet them with the closest shoe. It would also have an ongoing wave of movement when there are no customers close by to attract people to the shoe display system.

I was always interested in Design and Architecture. A two-year trip around Europe when I was seven inspired me at a very young age. Looking at historical architecture and the various influences provided a good foundation.

I am most passionate about conceptual design and trying to break new ground. Defining a client's personality, and being able to translate that into a commercially successful project, is the most rewarding. Ultimately design is a solution to a problem. The craftsmanship and skill comes in the ability in executing the solution in ways that are sometimes not conventional.

At the moment in my role at Bates Smart Architects, I am designing three restaurants in India for an international brand. Based in Delhi, the restaurants will be part of a hotel and need to attract a local and international client base. This emerging market is particularly interesting as they are looking to the West for inspiration and design benchmarks. Local influences are considered a little overdone and predictable. This is one of the great aspects of design. It is a truly global and transferable skill. The process does not change, but the context, the environment and the culture can vary considerably on a project by project basis.We are often thinking differently about how to resolve problems. The most recent example is TBWA Whybin agency in Pyrmont. A device was required to delineate various areas on the floor plate. The budget was tight and as a result we used a painted handrail suspended from the underside of the existing beams. This solution was both economical and very successful in creating a rhythmical, transparent screen device that was also sympathetic to the heritage of the architecture.

Our most recent project at Bates Smart, Conned, is a highly successful award winning project that had the following impacts:

• It helped redefine the brand and introduced a sense of pride and unity back into the workplace
• It activated communication and collaboration between the floors
• It removed hierarchy and introduced a flat structure
• It reduced annual churn cost

Ultimately good commercial design can improve financial, environmental and social aspects of our working lives.