Design for Life

The heart of good design is the marriage between beauty and function. Interior design that is truly exceptional sees both qualities existing in an exquisite equilibrium, neither one overpowering the other. An interior that looks great but does not effectively serve its purpose is at best a showpiece, and at worst an energy-drain. Similarly, a purely functional interior that neglects the senses will be flavourless, uninspiring, and potentially alienating.

Your decisions will ultimately shape how you live in your space. The functional design of a bedroom will influence how well you sleep, and even how often you have sex (yes, television in the bedroom is correlated with poorer sleep, and less sex!). If most of your food preparation occurs in a butler’s pantry, removed from the heart of the home, this takes you away from the humdrum of family life. Certainly, dirty dishes will be hidden away, but at what human cost?

Many people believe bigger homes will give them the lives they want: more square metres, an extension, an upper floor, an additional room or two. Building bigger homes, however, without addressing the humanistic concerns of how we want to live in them will not make us happier or more fulfilled. The size of your home is less important than designing it in a way that mindfully addresses these questions, and great interior design considers from the outset. This helps you make the most intelligently emotional decisions about how much to spend—and where and on what to spend it.

These are questions I grappled with while recently redesigning my own home. We live in a nineteenth century shopfront building on a vibrant retail strip. For many years, our living room was in the largest room of the house: the former shop. It is narrow, with high ceilings, and windows to the street through which we have heard fascinating and, at times, very intimate street conversations just outside the opaque glass. The back of the house housed the kitchen and an impossibly small dining room. When I asked the question, ‘How do we want to live?’ the way to make this place truly liveable became obvious.

I flipped the layout of the house and put the public area of the house where we entertain and cook and eat in the old shop and nestled the cosy living room in the back where it functions more like a library, a quiet place to retreat in the evening. It has delightfully transformed how we live: friends and family drop by for cups of tea and casual dinner to the bustle of the street outside, and at night, my husband and I relax, listen to music, talk and read at the back of the residence.

It is perplexing how little attention most people give to exploring the question of how they want to live. Too often, this is because interiors are an after-thought, only considered when time, money and energy are exhausted, or when the building has progressed to the point where it is too late. Or, people simply take for granted that they need a kitchen configured around an island bench and a living room with seating arranged around the TV. The most successful interiors are those where the two questions of ‘How do you want to feel?’ and ‘How do you want to live?’ are asked, deeply explored, and answered clearly—at the start. The answers then drive the project’s direction: whether to rebuild or renovate, whether to sell and re-buy, or whether to redecorate.

While ambience will affect your emotional state, it is the bones of a space—its functionality—that will shape your daily life. Purposeful design anticipates and accommodates the way you want to live, allowing you to feel deeply comfortable within a space. Like a wonderful life partner, a living space that is effortlessly functional inspires your own and your family’s growth and creativity and enables you to feel truly faithful to yourselves.

Kate Challis