This episode of the Beyond Interior Design podcast explores the transformative potential of design. We’ll focus on creating impactful spaces that prioritize people's needs and incorporate behavioral design principles.
More about Callie on instituteofinteriorimpact.com/callie
This episode of the Beyond Interior Design podcast explores the transformative potential of design. We’ll focus on creating impactful spaces that prioritize people's needs and incorporate behavioral design principles.
More about Callie on instituteofinteriorimpact.com/callie
not about balance of you know into what color internalities and textures and we tend to think in layers and designers by and large I'm not saying it's wrong but that's that is a final step but to start there is wrong like like that doesn't help us to move forward in terms of our responsibility as designers we we first need to have those real basics in place and then color those things in later because they are important but then that's what it doesn't they don't drive the the solution foreign [Music]
good morning good evening good afternoon wherever you are yes some familiar faces hi there welcome at the Beyond Terror design podcasts all right well I'm gonna start in a few minutes you already see uh Kelly in there in the video channels of course my companion Sven is here to uh manage the chat box and to answer your questions during the during the podcast uh of course when you have any questions you can ask Ali at the end we have a q a session uh prepared so if you have anything to ask put it in the chat we will uh we will collect them and uh we will ask the questions at the end so uh well it's 10 o'clock so uh let's start we have always people uh who are joining later so uh but that's their problem you are here right on time at 10 o'clock so uh let's start our next live podcast all right hi I'm Mark miscus co-founder of The Institute of interior impacts together with Sven from beer and thank you for listening to the Beyonce Terrell design podcast me and my business partner love beautiful environments with we're most of all interested in the person and the stories behind the why behind the best interior designs and that's how we got in touch with our special guest of today we read a lot of articles about him on LinkedIn about uh design thinking about behavioral design and we couldn't resist to reach out to him and to talk about the most beautiful profession in the world in their area design I'm talking about trained Architects California uh he moved in 2016 from South Africa to Sydney Australia to open design partnership Australia Hospitality design agency focused on designing for predictive human behavior in Social spaces and with a long list of award-winning projects we are proud to have Galleon ring here today with us a sneak peek of the topics of today design thinking versus behavioral design how we are divined by human nature the power and responsibility of designers our design role and the higher purpose and ultimate outcome of a well-designed space we're going to pick his brain today because he is this is how you are going to make real impact with your interior designs here it is live from Sydney Kelly vonamere thank you for helping me welcome Kelly thank you hi uh congratulations with all the awards from the last few weeks months thank you yeah a lot yeah how does that feel uh um look I mean we talk about Awards often but awards are probably more important to the client than there are really to the profession of design I think we over dramatize and we over the gravitation of water too much I think always mean almost little to nothing uh oh and and one shouldn't be chasting Awards uh at all and um you know just you know if I can if you allow me just to kind of qualify that statement yes uh design is just by designers Architects architecture Architects and um and so that's a curse of knowledge and the curse of knowledge really means that we look at things quite academically um so we'll look at things that you know how how detailed have we how how we molded the ceiling how we detail the flow what's it what's the junction between different elements what's the what's the we tend to unpack it in these components uh and because that's how we've been taught as architecture designers all the components that make a whole and so we reverse that but when you look at design and space and it's not really what it's about a design of any kind is the impact it has on people how people view it the sensibility are we creating better footfall is it a positive impact longer dwell time and are we creating joy and and if and those are the things that are really critical at the base of design um and unfortunately we designed 99.9 of design those awards are not judged on that Merit at all it's not it's not done so awards are are I would say really of little importance actually you're telling me that the clients need to give the awards to the designers well I think that yeah the end users yeah I think if the end users if there was a way to incorporate end users uh and and a way to kind of read their their response to a space the experience that they have on the space then that's the real testimony that's the real you know I've I've sat on many panels uh and and I've each time on a panel I can sense I can I I say it you know without the record that this we're awarding this but it's wrong that we will discuss this place will close down and I've never been wrong about a price that's not lost it's it's it happens because they just haven't appealed to the basic stages of human behavior and uh and there's a there's a string of them and if you but if you break all those rules then the place won't work and it's you know we can talk about that in a bit of detail if you want yeah well uh yeah well quite instrument because at the end it's yeah well for who are you making the design we are not creating it for other Architects and colleagues and well of course we like to have those Awards we like to be in the magazines or television shows or whatever it's an ambition for a lot of designers but at the end yeah why what what's what's the higher purpose the meaning of the impact of the Interior Design so great great job to share your opinion about that and you you may do that with all your Awards you are allowed to uh to say it in that way um hey you are on the hospitality business are you or how do you describe your well like it's important to understand again this is a nice segue into what we just spoke about that's um we are we do Hospitality spaces yes but we're not in the hospitality business we in the entertainment business because all spices are designed to entertain so the hospitality is not something where people go to Food you think about it if you and that's again the cursive technology think about people going to restaurants or bars to have food they're not going to our food they're going to be sociable and mixed with other people uh have a fun time out be entertained and if you look at the kind of pillars of human needs so we have certainty as a first one we all want certainty the second thing is uncertainty we all want uncertainty because we all like surprises if you knew exactly what is going to happen we would be bored and we won't do it yeah and then we love and attention we all need it and the fourth one is critical you need significant now within Hospitality if you can balance those things beautifully so yes the cook the food quality is that it's a passport Factor if you don't do good food and don't play but if you look at the hierarchy of sorry let me rewind it on that so you have to have good food but most importantly it's the way this place looks it's how what's the body language of the space is it welcoming does it make you feel comfortable because space is our personalities like humans to be back unpack it like that and then how significant does the host and the people make you feel that must make you feel like you're the most important person that entered their day the most important that's just how we wired every single person loves that they're wired like that we can be as humble as we as we want to be and we can but we all just we all love that attention so and then the food is lost the food is the very last thing because the truth is that we don't remember toast we think we we remember toast but we we remember the experience so if I had to ask you give me I'm gonna ask you a question what is your best food experience your best food no your best food memory
yeah that's a that's a dessert in the in the Michelin star restaurant week they took uh with a with a uh how do you call this this ice cold oxygen uh how do you call it stick stuff in Dutch but it's it's the this frozen dessert on the table but I can't remember the taste but the experience of all this dust over the table yet no plates no no Fork no knife no spoon and everybody was picking
things that you're used to so it's memorable so everybody remembers 9 11. most often people will will say it was a say for example the ahara with my girlfriend on our first dates whatever so most often people are involved in that kind of memory and the memory was unique it wasn't always the best place or the business or the best um um set with the best food it was just often it's the people that we were with it's a social space and restaurants are social spaces even if you go on your own or just you and your wife or even your girlfriend romantically and there's little things like you you need to be not too close to the people next to you because you want privacy but not too far because we all lack a bit of eavesdropping and it's just subconscious because the way we wired and um and by the way on that point if we save order food from a menu yes we sometimes do but if you look at your total experience in a restaurant it's one of the eight ways you order food what happens often though is you see a plate coming past you smell it you see it and there's a sense of um the hurt effects as well so now you have the visual because we visual first 30 of our cortex is devoted to visual stimulation first and we have 65 percent of us the visual Learners and and so forth and maybe go in a bit of a tangent but when you see that food there's many other ways I won't expand on that now coming past most often how many times have you asked the waiter or the waitress sorry what are they having yeah yeah you know and often we order like that so there's a lot of play Within the space that is not as kind of black and white as we think of a space specifically Hospitality when we're trying to unpack the blocks at markets so there's a lot of to influence the experience and the choices of all the people the behavior of course then yeah yeah and is that the is that our role as a designer so what what what what what is what is a designer in your opinion then what what is it that we do so I have a short version of it because if you think about the responsibility designers are there to solve a set of problems within a very specific set of constraints that's it it's nothing more nothing less that's what you need to do now that's different and I don't know I better understand but there's different to decor decor is enough that it doesn't have a function but that is often for beauty so Beauty subjective though so we can say it solves it for a very subject like a home or or where there's a personality involved and accept personalities and a way to to view things it's it's definitely different to being an artist so an artist is self-expression and John Mayday is the vice president of Microsoft for design and AI so here's the saying it says design is an answer to a problem and art is a question to a problem so artists have the freedom to question as many things and often artists like that is that but it's a personal Journey they have a personal Edge or personal thing that hurts them or or that they like or dislike and they find way through the art to express it it questions a day doesn't solve it and um but it's a personal journey and it can be vague if designers are vague they're bad designers it might be vague you can't be personal you have to extract yourself from that problem and have empathy for the problem of the end user so design is always a middle manage something to read everything but not have any kind of their personality within the space if you do that then you're not solving a problem for that for the the bigger end user group so you say personality you mean you mean your own ego you're a designer like if you express yourself in a way that it's your expression it is your um like the artist like the artist um then then you're not actually doing the best job of solving the problem that you've been given and on that problem issue on the problem issue maybe just expand on that yeah designs are often so they're misunderstood they come in the middle third so we have the front third where the problem is identified you have the middle third where they where uh clients slot you in and then you have the end third with this inciting is being built now you you can you kind of often across the last third but not always and if you're part of the entire equation you're not as valuable you can be replaced you need to be as a designer and the best products in the world has always had the designer as part of the problem statement what is the real problem because the problem cannot be read by just having the experience of the previous it requires a lot of thinking and and so if designers can if there's a way to get designers to sit across the Spectrum the outcome will be infinitely better the definition of the problem so Einstein said if I had an R to solve a problem I spend the first 55 minutes thinking about the right question to ask and those questions are often actually wrong yeah most of the time that's what designers do they they think they they people asking you for an extension so you a little you assume they need more space or they want more space and you before you know you don't you can't stop talking about extensions because but you don't know if an extension is the right solution but the client says they want an extension so how do you deal with that so Outlook when I have a great example on that that you just mentioned so I have a colleague it didn't happen to me but it happened to her and we speak about this quite frequently and she was asked by a um a lady until we don't do homes but she does and to come to a house and make it more intimate because she was feeling quite removed from her from her home and um and and what she wanted was to fill the place with more Deco she wanted to fill that place with more color and more art because in her mind this is what the negative was of the space What Was Missing anyway my colleague arrived there and because she's aware of those human needs she spent some time in the and said you don't have a deco problem you have a sound problem a sorry an acoustic sound problem sound problem yeah you have an acoustic problem because what happened in the space as you talk um you the sound would bounce around the room and it would Echo it'd be flattened it was Hollow and and that's what made it cold and she solved the sound problem the acoustic problem just the acoustic problem and made the space instruments just that one whereas the class definition of the problem was lack of stuff yeah it wasn't lack of stuff it was just because sound is critical to us and we we know already from restaurants and I think you and I spoke about this once once before it's a it's a big restaurant problem and it's called the Lombard effect so so the Acoustics are really not thought of so it starts bouncing around the room the music bounced around the room and now you and I try to talk but because of the noise we talk a little bit louder yeah but now because we're talking a little bit louder the people next to us are talking a little bit louder because they can't hear each other and so everybody starts talking a little louder it's a Lombard effects so now everything is loud and now nobody it's just a noise and it's a mess and we're all uncomfortable so Acoustics are I mean there's other things of course we can talk about that if we have time but Acoustics are critical critical to solve yeah just one element of all these design aspects because that's yeah it's just talking about Acoustics right now we have this this safety feeling you said before this kind of Primal Primal feeling we have it's sometimes hey we hear the story that a woman told us I'm not I'm I have a new place at my job but it doesn't feel well and they said how can you describe the place he said well I'm uh at the end of the alley and then there's my desk and I have uh I can look outside but then we discovered that in our back the whole department was in our back open in her back a lot of people entering from the back was not safe at all and we made her conscious of this that that was the problems he was like I never thought about that before so what was so cool just one she had to turn the desk that was it we call it cocooning we all have a need for cooking and if we solve that then we feel comfortable yeah at home good and we need to feel protected always in the spices and it's a subconscious thing often and another point you know it's it's it's it's um it's so we're not going to get into that now but because of that issue within restaurants we have eight seating patterns and we always apply those eye teaching patterns never anything out of it uh not all eight of course um but some of that it's like you can find you can yeah we they can find them on your block is it because yeah and on your website correct it's like it's a combination of those things and they all work and if you if you if you if if you apply those things uh in the on the principles of that behavior people will enjoy the space so they'll feel comfortable they'll feel they'll find and there's different personalities of course so within the eights you don't you know you appeal to different personalities not all people behave the same but very similarly yeah yeah great yeah so it's yeah Kelly was sharing a big secret actually on this uh on his website with all this so please have a look we will prepare a a website paid for you Kelly it's called Institute of interior impact.com we will put a link to the uh to the eight uh eighth floor plan Hospitality floor plan Secrets let's call it that way yeah yeah it's it's definitely good stuff so but it has has it to do with what what is it is it a is it a primal feeling we are so many years further and it's all moving so fast but what is it that's a great question so think about the fact that everything that you have everything that you know every single thing is less than 100 years old no space travel cars planes every single thing that you have right it's less than 100 years old however 200 000 350 000 years became of down the trees on the Savannah plane started walking behind legs uh you know I had some hands-free for tools you could see further and we could walk further and at some point we started journeying North but then we had the Ice Age and within that time so the radical changes happened and then things settle down at 11 500 years ago that ended or more or less nobody ever knows was for sure exactly but ten thousand years ago more or less we started subsistence farming and now we settled down into a longer more protected life bigger Community a safer Community better relationships and the wiring that happened there is the wiring we have today nothing happened after that that required rewiring so we think in global terms in big terms we think exactly the same as we thought at the time we had the same fears so there's no say between tiger of course but there there are other fields like deadlines or public speaking or you know we have but and we react to those things in exactly the same way and so it so the the broader things of how we behave today can be traced back to that in a similar or almost exactly the same for every single person we we just wired like that so the the stuff that we express externally a little bit the difference is that color is fluids color is quite fluid so you know we we the red is a is a color of speed and excitement and um uh uh you know it's using in qsr so people can move in and out our space a bit quicker um but it's not the same for everywhere like in India and Pakistan we do work in Pakistan red is the color of Purity it's the color of wedding dresses it's yeah it has a different thing also says the proximity is different so so if we live in very built up areas um I think the proximity is smaller like a sense of me in the connection between the space between me and the person next to me if we live in larger Open Spaces Africa or year and Oz our proximity Is Bigger be uncomfortable with people close to us three you need a need a bigger distance and that it's not things that that it's it's never quite linear now in Australia it's it's quite because it's a it's a it's a land of immigrants so you see it often um with different cultures coming together you can see you can see that almost clash and friction happening not a clash but some friction a little bit yeah um so so proximix and color um are fluid I mean there's uh there was another we could say for example why do policemen wear black because it's intimidating it is intimidating they need to be black or dark blue and you could always read it took them back to red like the Red Thai has become what's they call it the Obama uniform because he made it popular but we now because of one person yeah it's the address of a politician but in 1920 1920s in Philadelphia a red tie was a symbol of um male prostitutes when they that's how they advertise their the trade that's another word that's another story and rules yeah so color color is very fluid but the things that drive us the big things they're quite consistent in all of us yeah you you know we have uh the philosophy form follows meaning well this is this is the meaning the meaning of a red tie can mean a lot you can end up in a another different environment if you uh if you add to this story performance Feeling by that last time yeah yeah use that form follows feeling yeah and it's great because you're acting on these emotions and this behavior and that's that's what's leading you to the to how to design and the perfect environment yeah yeah yeah yeah you have this um yeah yeah you said this this Primal feeling back to that because you you had a quote like you can you can take the person out of the Stone Age but not the Stone Age not just the person correct yeah yeah it is and it is quite so um so if you talk about that maybe rewind that four fractions Enlighten wrote a book The Accidental Universe the universe we thought to be new so he talks there about nature for example and so we have a very big attraction as people in general designers always say no things mustn't be symmetrical however if you tag people in the in Elizabeth designers and and non-designers Clash um so the the most comfort for most people are spaces and things of symmetry because our mind is wired like that the wings of a butterfly the Petals of a flower our outer body experiences all these things they're symmetrical and so we've spent 99.9 or 99 for something in our development in nature and less than one percent in the built environment and so everything we've ever been used to and why to has been symmetrical so so that's how we want things and so you can be clever about it and there's a Japanese concept and I think we spoke about that it's all called frequency where it's a counterbalance of things of equal weight or different color and so you get but it's always comes back to symmetry whether it's a mirror image or the counterbalance it's the same thing but just that and they're simply because they talk about John John talks about the self-organization of the brain it's symmetry so so we can't we can never and we all wired like that so we can never say that that we are and as I said technology and everything that we have now around it's like oh we only have eight seconds um concentration are because of the phone yes but those are not big those are not those are not the things that drive us repel or repel us these are just little people small actions yeah these are these are the new things we uh we got in this last hundred years we have to deal with it but are you telling us that we are everyone is searching for this cemetery is it really what we are looking for or how does it feel what is what what does it do with us as a human if you use this it's quite subconscious so if you create spaces that have balance so let's just call it then by extension balance yeah we are more comfortable in Balance spices than an imbalanced basis so I think most of the time our clients and I think a lot of designers that are here and Architects are agreeing they're looking for harmony balance Unity but they talk about but we tend to talk about this thing these things that aren't actually thinking about what's causing it and why we should be thinking like this why do they want why do we want that it's important to understand that so um if we if we get to understand how we think and behave as human so so that's you and I spoke about design thinking at some point and and you know design thinking is incredible and it's nothing around Services I'm thinking is amazing but but but yeah tell me what is what because we have one of the topics is that has really um yeah design thinking versus behavioral designing you have even more steps in between let's let's go to Debbie to describe the difference between that because it's a way of thinking a way of seeing things because I think so we spoke about design we're designers and then so let's talk about behavioral designs the bearable design is the combination of psychology and Behavioral Science and it is to understand why we do what we do and to manipulate often what we do or to give us more information so we can make better decisions so that's behavioral design um design thinking is walking a mile in your end user shoes having empathy and immersing yourself in that and discovering the things that they need really in the specific environment and designing for those things that they could have the best possible I'm generalizing and making it quite sure the best possible experience the best possible interface the best possible use of a product and so forth design for behavior is not trying to understand that is in second sites that the combination of design thinking and behavioral design so that we can see what people do and design patterns or modules of spaces for positive influence so we can do it like this we can do it quick we know in this specific environment people do this yeah it's predictive so is it science is it science yeah look it's based on science yeah no we're not we know scientists but we just it's based in you know observations 27 years of looking at security footage or just looking at at how people behave and also making mistakes you said you said security footage does it doesn't mean now I'm thinking I always want to do that to to hang up a camera at the end that I can see how people are using their your designs or your you would like to have the first impressions of the people that are going on the birthday party or the first visitors of the restaurant but you you have literally footages of how people behave in in the design so so we we we've looked at the Reams and reams of that to see um just what people do we're less interested in why they then do it within that space because that that you know if they do the same thing consistently constantly in the design for 80 percent of that behavior you're designing the solution you don't you'll never designed for 100 um so looking at that and observing that you know so Dana really wrote that book we spoke about last time uh predictably irrational yep um and so we have to be irrational in but we predictably so so for example um a coffee shop across the road that sells a cup of coffee for six dollars but straight underneath me there's a cup of coffee for five dollars um it's longer to get there I've got to get across the traffic but the setting is such that I just believe that their coffee is better but it's exactly the same coffee in fact you know that because you swap the coffee around and nobody knows the difference or they guess it wrong when it's a 50 50 chance whatever but it's irrational but we do it because we believe it but it's not so
of a designer what you can do you have to like I said in the right in the beginning um it is it is critically important as a designer to design for the end user to create a space that people will believe and trust in like you believe in trust in a person so we we we aesthetic beings so we give half the profile and characteristics of a person to that person based on how we judge how they look so if they're very beautiful they're also very intelligent if you just do that we assume that we don't think about it it's the same for any space now beauty is subjective like we also spoke about that you know I'd end the Bolton wrote the architecture of happiness but when people say something is beautiful they're expressing the way that they want to be or the way that they want to live and it's it's the rules are similar but as I said they're nuances so yeah so let's go back on that because people are telling we want to know from uh our clients and or at least they are showing us this is what I like this is what I call Beauty and then what how do you how can you work with that because sometimes you can you can just create that picture to copy paste it that style and you just say okay I'm a designer I can realize that or the Builder says I can build that house for you no questions asked you just do it and at the end I don't know if it works I do I do hope it does but how do you how do you what what's what can be your first step what what's a good first step as an architect or designer to to when people show you this is what I call Beauty yeah look when obviously you have to challenge that because the um the perception of beauty that you have maybe quite different to the perception of beauty that your core client Patron base has yeah so it's important you define the end user first who's who's that end user now the the bulk of it as I say would be the same like ergonomics are the same chairside 450s you know 470 deep and they're certain you know quality of of uh of resistance in the foam that you need to have and there's certain activities and if we talk about all the centers we need to need to um apply and we spoke about sound and I mean if you talk about all these things then there there's slight nuances so um and they can differ by age for example so um so say the end user is it's a very high-end restaurant it's uh it's a it's a at the very top so it's exclusive to go there the chances then are that their clients tell us a much older clientele it's not a millennial potentially it's a much older clientele so they're also not great they don't have eyesight so if you think about those extensions the worst thing in a in a you know in a restaurant space where people can't see the menu why can't they see the menu because in a very high-end restaurant lights are dimmed and they're dimmed only to like 80 sometimes 50 Lux on a table in most cases then that audience is that unable to see what's the on the menu so so then they take out their phone and you can see there's light going on because you can see and that destroys the atmosphere for everybody else so it's your responsibility as a designer when you script a story to speak to the graphic designer if it's not in your department to say the Lux is only going to be 50 or 70 80 test this menu with your audience make sure that the font is the correct spice and it's black on white don't try funny colors on it because they need to see it there's primary number one so those are they're all little things that that that supports or detract but you have to be aware you have to go on that journey and understand exactly who that user is going to be otherwise you're going to miss a little thing like somebody constantly putting on a light and if my dad in his 80s he'll take the phone leave the light on and park this against his salt and pepper older so just shines across because he's not irritated so you know well you're you know you are ignoring the question of beauty yeah so you immediately go to the next do the next no you're you're really going to the next level and that's that's what I see all the time we think people are telling us something and you want to tackle it but we all we all have our own Intuition or feelings like ah I know I know what to do I can feel where where you're going but you are mainly going into the in the expert position actually of your knowledge and then you can maybe you're literally explaining if you if you well if we take this restaurant owner as a and he's telling you I like I like this menu and I like this uh chairs and I like this light and I like this and you immediately can go like okay your target audiences are a little bit elderly people they uh but do you want them to take them their phones out to see the menu and they will they will say no I don't like that okay then we have to to zoom out yeah and to show you what what is literally going on in the experience of your target audience so we can talk about beauty and the and this beautiful design chairs but maybe the more important things first or what is it that you because that's a that's a problem what I see they want to talk about beauty and your your you're going to share your knowledge on a more important factor at the end but yeah I mean the thing of beauty is um so we find from where we sit that we can convince a client quite easily that the core audience will not find this attractive for these number of reasons and this will be the the knock-on effect of this kind of decision um like for example we often challenge the this notion because designers say that within Hospitality they talk about color that blue is repulsive for food and to some extent it is but it's not true really um it's like we talk about autumn colors and stuff that's so we'll break it down like that first like what are the what are the big things that make people act in a certain way and they will color in afterwards what's the what is the fabric you know if if we talk about a very like the stuff that we do for specific clients here in in in
the Middle East it's quite it's the same brand name but it's quite different to what we do here so for example but there's no nuances like um like green is more important there because it's desert space so nuances around that and um bigger settings because what is what is beauty like bigger settings for titles because they go they don't go out and choose the guys are family so it's bigger bigger tables like bigger chairs more comfortable chairs like these are all things that impact our sense of beauty because those are the things that we like because it's our style of living it's our it's our it's our our habits so so you you you when you break down that end user in in what that hap those habits are how they live you find a thread of beauty that would appeal to them it's not something that lives in Pinterest and most designers make that mistake it doesn't live there at all you're zooming out all the time you're zooming out actually correct you are showing them why it looks like that why it needs to look like that and not how it looks how it's going to look but why it needs to look like that to explain your clients yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and and I mean I we have a fantastic relationship here with the clients we do a lot of work for and he's he's given us I mean he's in the beginning he's been very specific and now there's a trust where he'll say this is where we're going yeah this is my budget and not quite that simple you know it's never quite as simple enough it sounds like a heaven yeah but more or less I mean we spend little time now he knows that we know and it will bring a solution which he'll challenge sometimes because he's highly intuitive he's a he's spent since he was 18 he's now 60s spent his time in restaurants so there's a lot that he knows just for making mistakes and then learning so anyway that's so and he knows you define the goal together if you're working on Hospitality or I can imagine an office design there's the same residential is a little bit different but you're defining the the end goal the EXP you are describing you are kind of designing or describing it the experience you would like to create it is so so it's important when you start a specialized facility because we spoke about the fact that it's entertainment it's critical when you start a project that you script a story ah and a story that you script like a movie script so you script it what's the story that this restaurant wants to tell we all want to listen and be part of relatable stories that's just again I'll be hardwired because until we started writing that's how you still got passed on from father to son around campfires and stuff so we wired for Stories We love stories so you already are director actually as a designer you're the art director right yeah our director say script the story and then when you scripted the story you do the vignettes you do the little bits that that describe the scenes now that goes out to the to the person that's a scout designer with a scout Seeker or that sorry the side Scouts to get the right sights because fits into this it goes on to the personal designs the uniforms think about costumes you guys custom designers yeah fashion designer it goes out to the person that interviews the think about characters for a movie so they come in a cost you interview people for your restaurant so and eventually so it's exactly the same setting the same scenery the same principles and finally it informs the decor of the sets yeah you call it exactly the same thing but the restaurant the restaurants or the entertainment zone is the is the state actually correct it is exactly what it is it's a stage and every single person that's that that serves inside their characters within this plot in the script the actors they're all that they're all actors they're all characters within it they all fulfill that function and so the best restaurants are always people that understand this and understand that those people need to be trained for example the best person best server who won't just come and stand in and pass your menu they'll strike up a conversation you know I love that bag that I see because I you know whatever strike up something find a way to strike up something that's beyond the food that that really makes it personally feel special that drags them into the into the moment so so once you understand all of that now often designers another saying we are right and they design you know I'm just saying that the story that you script doesn't need to be exact story that that necessarily the users of the space understand but it's a story that binds everything together so they'll feel the Comfort because very very few companies actually have all the players all the role players all those functions Under One Roof I was like almost none so you know we have design companies and share Architects and they designed a space we have graphic and brand designers and they design and you know the front door to the space is your online presence is never the front or the restaurant so somebody's using doing that interface and um and some you know they're different there's so many people putting this together if they're the same story that I can read that is the concept they understand the same emotion yeah they understand the same feeling and the best movies in the world the best are the ones where that plot is so beautiful the characters really fit into it you can feel when it's been it's abrasive and in the soundtrack that comes with it you know the best that's the best that you know this beautiful soundtrack to it and that's why music's so important in a restaurant it's critical if this client that I spoke about earlier is I mean I mentioned the name Bradley Michael is a great client he
he just has this amazing tactility and this amazing feel for things he um he likes to play poetry in his bathrooms so it's music in the dining and poetry and it's such a
A disruption to when you're in the bathroom that you just don't expect it but it's beautiful you're right it it keeps you entertained even there so I was in it it reminds me of a I was a few weeks in a one of my favorite bars in the in in them boss it's a really it's a really cool outgoing bar and you have a lot of noises you could you can literally sit there and listen to the stories of the other people because it's so noisy it's it's the wrong example of a good restaurant but it's if you like entertainment and you just if you have a lot of vegetables it's great a lot of all your senses but I went to the toilet and the real thing is there is a sign you have to go down don't ask the uh the the the cooks if the toilet is downstairs that's the first sign they have so that's already fun then you go down and they had a new thing they were playing a kind of uh it was was conversation and sounds like you were listening to the conversations above so yeah the women was talking like hey did you see the man on the end of the bar he's cheating with his wife just have a look when you go back to the toilet was like your neighbor was was gossiping
you were looking for a guy at the end of the bar and there was a guy and it's not even his story but you're you'll make the story up you're making up the story entertaining it's it was entertaining yeah it's so cool I I sent everybody to the toilet yeah you have to go to the toilets
that's a great great yeah yeah poetry that's for another target audience I guess it maybe it works when they did a really really heavy poetry or with classical music you're like what what what what is this hey you can be amazed as well but this was really like hey and normally it's it's quiet at the at the bathrooms with men it's a different world than with uh with women and the toilets now we have General neutral so it's changing for us at the toilets but it was cool it was a story to talk about yeah yeah but look and talking about that this you know obviously certainly when it's younger as well designing a place in such a way that eye contact is possible but not uncomfortable so for example a horseshoe bar is better than a bar facing a wall because eye contact is more possible and that eye contact that that's that's um the moment of energy that you get in eye contact uh even if it's just you know doesn't have to be a sexual thing it's just making eye contact because it's a social thing yeah um it's a very important thing to to manipulate in a way that it's it's natural and um and and uh you know something that's in in certain age groups more important than others less important so end user obviously understanding that again is important yeah so yeah I actually you left me with even more questions than than before with this podcast it's always when I speak to you you have so many elements that you take care of in your in your designs so that's that's why it works obviously you're uh your designs so let's let's wrap it up and talk about the the ultimate outcome of an entire design the role of us as designers what what is it that we need to do we are we we haven't we can make an impact on our environment we are literally designing the world together so what what's the ultimate outcome
um look apart from all the things that everybody speaks about um always like we we're aware that we need to be sustainable and all of that so I think you've had enough of that so I'm gonna talk about that so but it is important so I'm not minimizing that I'm just saying for the sake of our conversation but so it's the responsibility that you have first of all to your client their clients come to you putting a lot of money on the line to do something that they believe in they come to you because they believe in you very very important for you to be selfless in this entire thing it's completely selfless you are the translator between the client and their dream you are the facilitator you're not the god designer that managed to have this space um in your image like people must know that that Sven or Mark or Kali it's not that's not it if if if it's a net result it's it's great but that's the second result it can't be that the first important thing is to to really make yourself aware others drivers and those nuances and to be able to actually design on budgets you know it's not it's not good enough to say that you don't understand and we need to do this and that because it's simply something that you believe in fictitiously like there can be no room in designing commercial space for example for you to be as a designer intuitive about because you believe because it might just work it has to work you can't you have that responsibility and so as far as your position that is your responsibility now the client may do other things for example like have the wrong food like you know we know we're not chefs we're not Cooks we're not you know we're not we don't train people to behave in a certain way when they serve that's not our role as far as our role is that is critically important because clients will soon realize that this is how you view and that'll create a nice Harmony um for you and it'll it'll come to to bless you in work moving forward you know it's not going to harm you at all ever it'll just come to bless you because the client is not going to go anywhere else if what he gives you is treated with such respect and the outcome is so positive and he needs to only worry about those other things that he they need to fill in that they're responsible for and I think really that's where we sit and and and if we can get that right because I think we we are quite aware now that people are very self-aware and they're very very um we're not in the Industrial Age anymore we don't live in script boxes we're not we're not trying we're not we don't sit in a in a in a um in an industrial kind of assembly line you know we we're Brave in how people go out and they search for their unhappiness as search for their own uh purpose and and that's the main driver we all people are quite um adventurous now in terms of finding that sweet spot for themselves that they can have true calm happiness can be centered and and so I think for the most part design has not matured in that way where it's teaching us to be so in tune with our person that we design for that that's what we need to achieve we we it's not about balance of you know into what color internalities and textures and we tend to think in layers and designers by and large I'm not saying it's wrong but that's that is a final step but to start there is wrong like like that doesn't help us to move forward in terms of our responsibility as designers we we first need to have those real basics in place and then color those things in later because they are important but then that's what it doesn't they don't drive the the solution right so yeah actually our a lot of designers Architects talk about their own signature in our training program we have a we have a model about that the signature strategy to find your own your own signature but it's not we're not talking about Aesthetics we're talking about the kind of core values or the impacts the approach you want to make with your designs if that can be your signature your strategy that people will recognize your goal or your the impact you want to make as a designer you have you're raising your value so much more than just this creating this beautiful image because then what yeah is it yeah yeah yeah yeah look I mean so it it is quite um difficult often not to end up with things that are s often you can pick up the signature but you but but that is often a result of availability of suppliers and your circle and things that you do that that you bounce off it's it's so it's very difficult to design actually talking about that without something in that space reminding you of somebody's work so um but one needs to be as far but that's again it's a bit like talking about color or a bit like proximics and stuff these are little things that are you know they're not the big drivers no um yeah so I agree with that 100 like you approach in what you do um is so critical and important for for a client to understand and so that they also understand obviously where they sit with you and where they because they need to every client that approaches you for some work they have a massive responsibility in other things that they need to do like that you know as we spoke earlier about their return which is none of your responsibility so critical that you hold that up but that they know exactly your approach and and and and and the blocks that you will actually color in for them and the ones that you quiet and designers often are not and we also sometimes guilt here that they do not too transparent about the things we're not great at um
yeah hey is it last question is it do you need to be to be a good designer what we designed to to Define as a good design do you need to be the best designer in the world no no no no no and what's how do you define the best respect the opening question about um Awards and stuff so how do we Define the base we just find the best Often by what other people in our industry defines us the best and that's the wrong way to look at it it's completely the wrong way to look at the the right way to look at it is is it's completely as a no space is a space until somebody uses it it's not it's just nothing and so you if we can create spaces or whatever nature Place making where people find joy happiness whatever the best result of themselves like for example and without getting sidetracked High ceilings I'm always going to use of a creative thought and Loud ceilings I'm always going to use it for analytical thought it's just the way and people know that from neural Imaging that they've done they know that it's not like we're guessing these things through neural Imaging we see the way the brain fires up that that's what happens and if you're not aware of these things as a designer you're doing your client at this favor so that's the most important thing and that's the best outcome best is not what other designers think of your work I would say yeah