InteriorDesign

A useful interiors brief records four things: how the space will be used across a day, who uses it and what they are sensitive to, what must be kept, and what the budget genuinely is. Everything visual follows from that. A family with two young children and a dog gets different flooring, different upholstery fabrics and different corner details than a couple who entertain twice a month, even if both love the same reference image.

For hospitality and retail the constraints are commercial: covers per hour, guest turnover, cleaning cycles, brand standards, fire and accessibility regulation, and the operator's replacement policy for soft goods. We write those down before any moodboard, because they eliminate whole categories of material and save weeks of design that would have been unbuildable.

Use pattern, sensitivities, what stays, and the real budget. Four constraints that decide every visual choice that follows.

A material palette is a system, not a collection. We work with a base of two to three large-surface materials — floor, wall finish, primary joinery — then a secondary layer of stone, metal and textile, then a small number of accents that carry the personality. Proportion matters more than choice: the same oak, plaster and brass can read warm and calm or busy and cheap purely on how much of each is used and where the edges land.

Colour and finish must be tested in the actual light of the space. Greek daylight is hard, high and blue-shifted at midday, and it turns cool greys flat and reveals every imperfection in a matt wall. We sample on site, at the hours the room is used, and pair the palette with a lighting scheme at the same time — because a colour approved under a showroom's 4000K downlights will not behave under 2700K wall washers at night.

Most disappointing interiors are correctly furnished and badly lit. A single ceiling source flattens a room; a layered scheme gives it depth and lets it change character between morning, dinner and late evening. We design in four layers: ambient for general comfort, task for kitchens, desks and reading, accent for art, stone and texture, and decorative for the pieces that are seen rather than seen by.

The technical decisions matter as much as the fittings. Colour temperature is held at 2700K to 3000K in residential and hospitality spaces, colour rendering at CRI 90 or above so timber, stone and skin tones read correctly, and every circuit is dimmable and grouped into scenes. Beam angles and fitting positions are set against the furniture plan, not the ceiling grid — a downlight centred on a room and a downlight centred on the artwork produce two completely different spaces.

Ambient, task, accent, decorative. Four layers, 2700–3000K, CRI 90+, everything dimmable and scened.

Every finish carries a maintenance contract, whether or not anyone reads it. Natural marble is beautiful and porous: it etches with lemon and wine, and in a family kitchen or a busy bar it needs to be sealed, accepted as a patina material, or replaced by sintered stone. Solid oak moves with humidity; engineered boards are stable, and for underfloor heating they are the safer specification. Matt lacquers show fingerprints, high-gloss shows dust, and both are wrong for a hotel corridor.

For hospitality and retail the classifications are non-negotiable: contract-rated upholstery, slip-resistant flooring at the correct rating for wet areas, fire-rated wallcoverings, and impact-resistant corners on every route a trolley uses. We specify from our own imported catalogue, so each named material comes with a real lead time, a real price and a stock position — and the alternates are already known if something goes long.

The pivot point of every project is the 3D sign-off. Before that moment, the scheme is still a conversation; after it, it becomes an itemised document. The approved model produces the furniture schedule, the joinery drawings, the lighting circuit plan, the finishes schedule with a code against every surface, and the priced proposal broken down by trade.

That single file removes the most expensive failure in interior work: re-measuring and re-pricing between stages. The designer, the joiner, the electrician and the supplier all read the same document, so the sofa that fits in the render fits through the stairwell, and the pendant that hangs at 1.8 metres in the drawing hangs at 1.8 metres on site.

One approved model becomes the schedule, the drawings, the order list and the price. No re-measuring between stages.

Delivery is sequenced: builder's work and joinery first, then flooring, then decoration, then lighting commissioning, then furniture, then styling. Getting that order wrong costs more than any single material choice — a sofa delivered before the floor is protected, or curtains hung before the walls are finished, guarantees rework.

Styling day is the difference between a finished project and a photographed one: the art hung, the rugs squared, the shelves composed, the lighting scenes recorded. You then receive a finishes dossier — every product, supplier, code and cleaning instruction — so the interior can be maintained, repaired and extended years later without guesswork.