I guess in terms of judging, I am looking for candidates who are putting on a stronger
focus on the physical experience of being in the space.
I guess in my work the word comfort and the calmness of it is important, but I guess these
two words are actually fundamental qualities of spaces that people want to be in and in
recent years there's possibly a growing trend of interior spaces being done for the sake
of being photogenic and press savvy, whereas I am much more interested in seeing spaces
that's designed for people.
I'm really looking forward to being on the jury for this award because I think interiors
need a platform to show what they can do.
I'm really looking forward to seeing interiors that do much more than simply fill a place
with furniture and make it look a bit cool.
I think interiors have the scope to shape and give meaning to the interior life of buildings
and I think what I'm going to be looking out for is interiors that really create identity,
that create experience, that create concepts for the content of those buildings, for the
brands that occupy those buildings, I think that interiors can do so much more than basically
make a place just look a bit hip.
What I'm really going to be looking for is some more unique qualities, a little bit bored
of that whole kind of formulaic design where things are over-designed perhaps in settings
so people get a kind of, they've picked up from magazines that everybody's doing breakout
spaces or hot desking or something and then there's little elements that look quite good
but then the whole of the rest of the space doesn't really work together.
People sort of get hung up on gimmicks of design which are over-manufactured, what I'm
looking for is something that's more of a spatial design that comes together as one
and the whole thing works together, all the details and the overall aesthetics and there
is more thought to it than just picking up on little trends.
Well I'm hoping to see really good quality design, design that delivers on not just an
aesthetic but it has to be practicality, it has to be fit for purpose, all these boring
things but when we're designing hotels, I mean we've had people go around the stopwatch
seeing how long it takes to clean a room whether they accept the design or not and I think
these are sorts of things which I think designers really need to wake up to, it's a business
and a very, very competitive business now.
