OUR DESIGN MANIFESTO: ARE ARCHITECTS AND INTERIOR DESIGNERS STILL RELEVANT IN THE ERA OF PINTEREST AND AI?
A Sneak Peek into Hygge: Our first project featured in Architectural Digest India
With the advent of more sophisticated tools available to clients and end-users via social media sites such as Pinterest, and now, AI apps such as Midjourney, I’ve been giving some thought to the value that architects and interior designers bring to projects. The fact is, what people used to rely on us for as a profession has changed.
For example, a friend recently renovated her apartment without the help of an architect or interior designer. She directed the design entirely through sharing Pinterest images with her contractor, who rendered some quick 3D visualisations, which she approved and he executed.
And it’s a nice apartment - it was a budget renovation, but it looks cozy and comfortable. It’s a lot of work, but technology has made it easier for home-owners to get their dream home with or without a design professional involved.
So, against this context, what value does a design professional bring to the table today compared to the days of yore before Pinterest?
First and foremost, hiring a design professional is not for everyone. I think it’s important to be clear beforehand about what value a design professional will bring to your project. If you think you have a very clear idea of what you want aesthetically, or you have a contractor you trust to execute your ideas for you, then maybe that’s the best course of action.
At SKDO, our design approach focuses on creating climate-sensitive, hand-crafted and user-centric built environments. Here, I’m unpacking what this means and highlighting (eventually) why this makes us unique.
But I’m going to start by being a bit controversial and telling you all the things designers do currently that can in fact be substituted, before telling you all the things that are unique to our value proposition.
What are some other reasons we might hire a design professional?
One - Do you want someone who can help execute your vision with a good project team because you’re really busy and you really cannot get into the details or the day-to-day?
A design professional is probably pretty good at this, but a project manager would be a better fit in that case.
Two - Do you want someone who can help flesh out your vision because you aren’t sure what exactly it is you are looking for?
A good designer will do a great job of this, but it’s not necessarily something you NEED a design professional for if you’re quite good at figuring out what you want. Case in point - my friend.
Three - Do you want someone who can bring out-of-the-box ideas?
Again, a design professional will do a great job, but on the other hand you might have creative friends and family who can add that skillset.
Four - Do you want someone whose experience can bear on your ideas so that they become executable?
A design professional adds a lot of value here. But an experienced and aesthetically inclined contractor has loads of experience - they would give you good feedback on what’s workable and not if a design professional is outside your budget.
While designers do all of the above and do it really well, in today’s world, most of these skills are substitutable - it might be extremely time-consuming and painful, but it’s possible to forgo that design fee and get what you want.
One caveat: This list is only relevant for small-scale residential construction. Traditionally, in large projects with several stakeholders, architects and built environment professionals are essential for safeguarding the vision and design intent of a project from conception till execution, while in residential single-family homes, clients often take on this role.
There’s another misconception I want to clear up:
You shouldn’t hire designers because we create beautiful spaces (although we do!)
I repeat: DESIGN IS NOT (ONLY) ABOUT CREATING BEAUTIFUL SPACES.
AI can do that. Pinterest shows you heaps of beautiful spaces all the time.
Design is about creating meaningful spaces.
Integrating your furniture and your model airplane collection seamlessly, for example.
Negotiated spaces.
For example, somehow cobbling together a space that you AND your spouse AND your teenager love.
At SKDO we follow an iterative process, through trial and errors, bringing out the best design solution for you
Holistic spatial systems
Figuring out how the plumbing pipes don’t have to cut through the living room into the shaft, or maybe figuring it out so that it actually looks kind of cool.
In a recent project, our client opted out of a TV console but desired a solution to conceal wiring. We delivered a seamless wall-mounted TV installation, meeting their needs seamlessly.
One of the things that design professionals do amazingly is integrate a lot of complex information seamlessly into a holistic whole through a deep understanding of the end-user, an iterative design process, and heaps of common sense shaped by experience. While you may have a great idea you saw on Pinterest for a wall panelling, what about the pesky AC and electrical switches? How can those systems be seamlessly integrated into your grand vision? In fact, in my friend’s apartment, she had a beautiful moulded wall panelling detail, marred by an ugly switchbox which interrupted the molding. She could have probably used a design professional there to help her detail that out.
In our project- House with a Pond, we made sure that our client’s collection of crockeries is the star element
Another thing that design professionals do best is being strategic and appropriate. What does that mean? Being appropriate (or what I like to call “context-sensitive”) is about understanding the best solution not only for you, but for your neighbours, your neighbourhood, and your city. It involves thinking about energy efficiency, sustainability AND beauty all in one. Being strategic is about knowing where to allocate budgets for maximum impact, to think about aging of materials, maintenance, and future scenarios, to understand the implications of a handle or a door that turns this way rather than that way, to sift through many layers of information to arrive at the solution that seems right for you and your family or business.
Every summer, SKDO engages in collaborative projects, integrating placemaking elements into designs for a Montessori school. The snippet provided is from one of our presentations, specifically tailored for teachers, who play a vital role as major stakeholders in this project.
Also, putting people in design. Design professionals will sit with you and help curate your artwork to understand how it can best complement the space. They will help you anticipate your future needs and prod you to think about how that may change from what you think looks great right now. They will select materials that age well, and create spaces that will look well lived in and COMFORTABLE not just immediately but in ten years. They will facilitate discussions about the overall vision with other stakeholders (maybe your spouse, maybe your investors) in a productive way. They will ask the right questions so that you get what you want and need, not necessarily what you say you want and need.
Design professionals bring all the disparate pieces together so that your space has a story to tell.
At SKDO, we work with our clients to create climate-sensitive, handcrafted and user-centric built environments - we love working on challenging briefs that bring together different stakeholders and end-users, we love finding ways to integrate appropriate materials and technologies to achieve gains for energy efficiency or circular water management, and we love working with our clients to create spaces that work for them now, and will continue to work for them in the years to come.
We think we do a good job of all of the above - if you’re interested in having a conversation, please reach out at contact@skdo.in