Design Poetry

There is a poetry to good design, but good poetry doesn't start with a blank sheet of paper and every word in the English language. You can't write a poem by randomly flipping through your dictionary, dropping your finger on the page, and grabbing whatever words it falls on. This will get you gibberish. You can't even just start by writing down every word you happen to like on a page. Although that might be a start in the right direction, you will not end up with a poem. You have to have something to say; you have to have an idea, a starting point. A poem has to be about something, it needs a reason to be. Likewise, the spaces we inhabit are not just blank slates to be filled with stuff. They are places with a purpose, places where we eat, sleep, rest, play, work, dream, and live. The spaces we design, like the poem, have to be about something. Bringing in a designer is like bringing in a co-writer to help you write that piece. 

Commercial Poetry

This co-writing process can take on as many forms as there are clients. In a more commercial or institutional setting, like the work we are doing for the Hill Country Memorial (HCM) Outpatient Center, the purposes and needs of each room are very structured. The boundaries are set by building code, medical procedures, sanitation, durability. This brings obvious structure to the design but could there be more to it than this? The structure of a limerick or sonnet sets boundaries for a poem, but it is the words and images you fill that structure with that give life and delight. 

When life brings times of sickness or injury and we have to go for rehab or treatment, we find ourselves ripped from familiar places and stuck into strange, cold, institutional spaces. But does this have to be the case? Could they be more than sterile procedural spaces? After all, a hospital is a place that is about health, wellness, life, suffering, healing, and recovery. What design elements speak to these things? For the new HCM Outpatient Center, we have been asked to create a space that, while functional, speaks of home and the Hill Country. Further, they have asked us to create a whole package of colors, textures, materials, and surfaces to be used throughout all of their facilities, a visual vocabulary. Our collaborative efforts are entirely focused on creating cohesive environments that harmonize with HCM’s underlying beliefs and values around patient experience. Spaces that are as much relatable to everyday life as they are promoting health and wellness.

So what colors and textures speak of the Texas Hill Country? Flowers and birds, deer grazing, and long grasses blowing in the breeze. You think of lush greens and blue skies through tree branches, gnarled wood grain and wildflowers. These images, blended with the needs of medical work, lay the boundaries within which we work. So we've found fabrics, colors, furniture, and photographs that echo the hills, creeks, and rustling grass that the patient saw outside their home that morning when they awoke. The design tells the patients that, while for now they are in need of help and care, they are still in the Hill Country, still at home.

Intentionally Knowing People

As you can imagine, this “co-writing” design process looks quite different for a home. In some ways it is more like free verse, with fewer strict rules or codes. And for many, the lack of strict rules for a new home build or redesign can be an overwhelming prospect. Where to start? How will you shape the space in a meaningful way that is personal and purposeful? And what even are the options of design elements that could be used? You could put any sofa, painting, or table in any room. At SDS it is our delight to help you find those ideas that flesh out a vision and speak a coherent thought. It should “state” something about who you are, reflecting what’s unique about your life.

Since you are the author and reader of this design poem in the end, our first step is to really get to know you. We have to hear how you think, understand what you value, and see what you find beautiful. And from this conversation, we start picking up on common threads that begin to circle around and tell of a dream or idea. Perhaps it is a vision of grandchildren playing board games in a bunkhouse, an heirloom piece of furniture that tells stories of generations past, or a sofa filled with friends every weekend. Whatever it might be, as this idea takes shape in our conversations, we start to find a structure and form to work with. As we flesh out the idea we define and refine your vision and start building your visual vocabulary.

But even with this starting point, this idea, there still remain thousands of colors, textures, and items to choose from. This is where the SDS interior design team brings their breadth of knowledge to bear. Like the co-writer, we don't just have a dictionary full of words, we have honed skills of visual speech: skills of phrasing, alliteration, rhyme, and meter. We take the elements of that one idea, spin them out into different design elements, and sketch out possible directions you could go from your starting point and bring a few curated items for you to choose from or send back. We take the aged wood grain moldings of Grandma's 200 year old Welsh Dresser and find wainscoting and tile that echo that solidity and history. We take that one mid-century Thayer Coggin drop-in sectional sofa you fell in love with and pull from the angles of its thin legs and upholstery color to find rugs for the hall that echo back and lead on to bedroom lamps and curtains that have accents from the sofa. Or we take your dream of a bunkhouse full of kids every weekend and bring you richly colored and durable materials that will stand the test of spilled cocoa and pillow fights. We don't write the poem to our own taste but bring our wealth of knowledge of how design elements work and work together to fill in and give shape to your dream. 

The co-writing process of design can easily be overwhelming. The choices are endless and the choices matter. But with your ideas and dreams paired with a steady-handed designer who takes the time to know you, to know what you love, what you value, what you think is beautiful, the process becomes one of creativity and joy, co-creating a work of art that is lived in and that and gives life to the living.