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UK prime minister Boris Johnson and his partner Carrie Symonds have recently refurbished their Downing Street flat. Michelle Ogundehin asks why everyone is so angry about their interior design choices. More
After a turbulent 2020, this year designers should be braver and bolder, says Michelle Ogundehin in her interior design anti-trends report for 2021.I concluded my 2020 Interiors Report with the words, “I still believe that we can be as brilliantly inventive as we have previously been so terribly destructive. However, 2020 is our make-or-break year to prove it.”
Six months later I wrote about the potential impact of the coronavirus on our homes. In summary, your environment is as fundamental to your health and well-being as nutrition and exercise.
However, Covid is not the only issue impacting society. The pandemic simply crunched years of behavioural change into months. Resistance wears away when something becomes a necessity. And while some of the responses to global lockdowns gave us a glimpse of potential solutions, other factors are having an equally noxious affect on the way we live.
As Christopher Ryan says in his book, Civilised to Death: The Price of Progress, “the zoo we’ve designed for ourselves is a poor reflection of the world in which our species evolved, and is thus a profoundly unhealthy, unhappy place for too many of the human animals it contains.”
This report then is less about trends, than exposed truths
Certainly, if we peel back the cladding on much of the residential housing built over the last few decades, it reveals a horrifying disrespect for the humane as the dignity of the occupants is routinely sacrificed at the altar of profit – tiny windows, minimal footprints, cramped rooms, no easy access to outside space, and not least, cheap and dangerous building materials.
It’s a symptom of where we find ourselves, but also a contributor to the cause as it affects our primal need for a safe place to call home. This report then is less about trends, than exposed truths.
After all, even before Covid, normal wasn’t working. To quote the American socio-biologist Edward O Wilson, “The real problem of humanity is the following: we have palaeolithic emotions; medieval institutions; and godlike technology.” Or as Sophocles would have it, “nothing vast enters the life of mortals without a curse”.
Sexy eco, monochrome and plus-size furniture: interior design trends for 2020
In other words, the flip side of the incredible technology we have at our fingertips is that it’s simultaneously being used as a tool to erode the very fabric of society – community, connection, reality and considered thought (which I explain as the desire to check sources and decide for ourselves before accepting opinion as fact). Plus, apps to run our baths, ever faster broadband, the ability to manipulate genes, Klarna, deep fakes and cheap flights to far-flung lands? Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should.
Blurring the boundaries between home and work is not without repercussion
It had already been estimated that by 2020, 50 per cent of the UK workforce would be working from home. Campaigning for the flexibility it offered had previously been vociferous, especially for women.
Besides, employees were at breaking point. The toxic culture of presenteeism resulted in 44 per cent of all UK work-related absences being due to stress and anxiety. In short, work as we knew it was already broken. It was just the bosses who feared staff would be less productive if given more freedom. The opposite has been proven to be true.
Nevertheless, blurring the boundaries between home and work is not without repercussion. Alongside the impossibility of overlaying parenting with employment in the same space and hours, even without children in tow, the ability to WFH assumes you have adequate room, equipment and support. And if you injure yourself on-the-job at home, are you insured?
We would also do well to remember the salutary tale of “Bob”, the US software developer who in 2013 outsourced his job to a Chinese consulting firm for a fifth of his salary. His work didn’t suffer.
In fact, he was regularly marked out as being one of the company’s top-performing programmers. Until he was rumbled. But here’s the thing, if WFH makes it easy for you to outsource your job without being detected, it also makes it easy for your boss to outsource you. If you can do your job anywhere, can anyone do your job?
For these reasons alone, the demise of the office is over-stated. Besides, according to an Arup survey published in The Sunday Times, for every 100 office workers, four jobs are sustained in the food/drink sector; six in hospitality and seven in retail. But, if businesses are smart, offices will be smaller and used as three-day week hub points for shared learning, innovation and collaboration. People are innately social animals. We need to come together to get things done. This will engender improved productivity and creativity with a happier workforce.
Fear is not a trustworthy motivator for long-term survival
And yet, living with uncertainty can be a great spur to innovation and discovery. Regardless, in so many aspects of life we have become more fearful. We begin to believe that it’s OK to attempt to live forever, plan an exodus to Mars, medicate our way out of aging, or see the world as something to be perpetually controlled and conquered. This is not progress, it’s to rail against the natural order of life. Fear is not a trustworthy motivator for long-term survival.
For example, a vaccine is a reprieve from fear, but a vaccine is not a cure. It’s a shield. Like a mask. Or hand-sanitising. Absolutely required to protect the most vulnerable, but mass inoculation does little to address the cause.
And when another pandemic occurs, our response cannot be a repeat performance of the ‘muzzle-up-and-shut-down’ while waiting to be saved, as already witnessed. The collateral damage of disrupted lives, broken livelihoods and the inevitable mental health fall-out are too severe. There has to be another way.
“In the future home, form will follow infection”
We could start by taking some personal responsibility. As Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of The Lancet put it, “Our liberties depend on our wellbeing”. And yet, “we create the risks that threaten us… Our space for manoeuvre is narrowing. Pandemics are the new normal. We had better understand that. And get used to it.”
Thankfully, we already have inside us one of the most potent infection-fighting bits of kit imaginable, our immune systems. We need to bolster these. However contemporary life for many does precisely the opposite. We will spend on average 90 per cent of our time indoors and by 2050 the UN had predicted that 68 per cent of the world population would be living in profoundly urban environments.
UK government schemes like Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s eat-out-to-help-out initiative imply that it’s our moral and civic duty to support the economy. But is it?
Previously eradicated diseases like rickets and gout are returning to developed nations, alongside childhood myopia and obesity, all attributable to increasingly screen-based, sedentary lifestyles with a profound lack of outside time. As a result, instead of getting stronger as a species, we appear to be getting weaker. This is a pathology of society, not just our bodies.
As the Journal of Affective Disorders stated in 2012 (from Christopher Ryan’s Civilised to Death): “The economic and marketing forces of modern society have engineered an environment… that maximise[s] consumption at the long-term cost of well-being.
In effect, humans have dragged a body with a long hominid history into an overfed, malnourished, sedentary, sunlight-deficient, sleep-deprived, competitive, inequitable and socially-isolating environment with dire consequences.”
Surely then the vital question must be: if city centres were previously considered the engines of the economy, but urban hubs don’t work for us and we need more room for homeworking as well as outside space, what must change – us, or the way we view “the economy”?
UK government schemes like Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s eat-out-to-help-out initiative imply that it’s our moral and civic duty to support the economy. But is it? If a recession is on the horizon, shouldn’t I be saving or downsizing? But if I don’t spend, do I in effect prompt the downturn? Catch 22.
And what of that other political punchbag, education. “The Future of Jobs Report” prepared by the World Economic Forum in 2016 stated that 65 per ceny of the children entering primary school then would end up in jobs that don’t currently exist. Despite this, existing measurements of learning — annual exams, one-size-fits-all curriculae – do little to assess and develop character traits like curiosity, resilience and independence of thought. Essential for our children both today and if they are to be employable in the future.
Everything that we believed comprised ‘civilised society’ has been shown to be more fragile than we thought
So where do we go from here? We’ve shattered the economy and ideas of sovereignty. Contemporary society has repeatedly been shown to be fractured along racial, faith and class lines. Most political systems have always been broken (in my opinion, governments are but a country’s HR department: there for the business, never the people). National security was no match for an invisible foe. And healthcare can only ever be based on assumed knowledge.
Basically, everything that we believed comprised ‘civilised society’ has been shown to be more fragile than we thought. It presents a dilemma. It seems we need to go back in order to go forwards, but nostalgia is a mistake, and the future is unknown.
Our global interconnectedness appears to be both our passage to, yet also from, destruction. The return of the analogue is manna for our sanity but automation and robotization are essential for convenience. We cannot deny the might of the ‘attention economy’ — I am still ‘seen’ even in lockdown; therefore, I exist — but it urgently needs to be recalibrated.
“Grey alone would be too depressing for 2021’s colour of the year”
Writing as an optimistic realist, I maintain that the power to proactively prompt big change for our best interests has never been so vested with the Everyman. And in that lies our opportunity.
My hope is that over the next few years such conscious consumerism will drive market value rather than the customary manufacturer-prompted lure of the new. Because, while we will almost certainly keep spending, swiping, click and collecting, what I see changing is the awareness that every time we do so, we advocate for the provider to stay in business.
We can individually vote with our wallets for greener energy suppliers and sustainable manufacturers, boycott apps that unnecessarily distract or hook users, or globally demonstrate for cleaner air and ethical governance. Anything rejected by such a collective mainstream will be undermined. In this way even the most established edifices become vulnerable unless they move with the times.
Discomfort begets the new comfort. This is the year for the interiors equivalent of speaking your own truth
The uncomfortable truth is that 2020 might just have been exactly what we needed. A year so damned unsettling that a majority finally woke up and saw that we must understand, even if not accept, polarising points of view. That real evolution is all about balance: new and old; real and virtual; left and right; East and West. Combative duelling is rarely the path to sensible compromise.
And regarding Interior trends for 2021? Discomfort begets the new comfort. This is the year for the interiors equivalent of speaking your own truth. To be braver, bolder and create your own interiors narrative.
To understand that the best homes are about the feeling they give you not the stuff they contain, the “right” colours or “hot” looks. A tidy home doesn’t necessarily make a happy home. And being surrounded by memories is not the same as living in the past — our roots keep us anchored in the present.
Quite simply, we are all products of our environment. If we intentionally create more supportive spaces in which to live, i.e. spaces which reflect our authentic likes and lives rather than anything dictated externally, we will be more able to weather the myriad messy curveballs of life itself. This alone is the true purpose of home. And the impact of fully recognising this could be game-changing, if not potentially life-saving.
Michelle Ogundehin is the author of Happy Inside: How to Harness the Power of Home for Health and Happiness and the head judge on TV series Interior Design Masters.Main image is of the Dezeen Awards-shortlisted Writer’s Studio by Eric J Smith.
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Borrowing aesthetics from a range of cultures masks the lack of racial diversity in interior design and it is now time to change this says Bhavin Taylor.As a BAME designer, I am well aware of the lack of diversity and the dearth of representation within interior design. The issue is not new and has been going on in our industry for years.
Coming from an Indian background – with its own strong cultural heritage – a creative career is not often understood, nor seen as a stable career path by those around me. Growing up, I was hindered by the fact that there were no role models that looked like me who could offer aspiration or relatability. This made the decision to become a part of the industry a difficult one. It is not an environment for those who aren’t comfortable standing out – luckily, I am not one of them.
I was only one of two people of colour in my class. All the teaching staff were white
This lack of diversity was apparent throughout my younger years and especially so when I entered the industry. Starting at interior design school, I was only one of two people of colour in my class. All the teaching staff were white. This has continued throughout my career. In the professional workplace and at industry events, I am always in the minority. This is particularly noticeable in media and television, where the representation of BAME (black, Asian and minority ethnic) designers is sadly lacking.
Our industry, which is all too often one seen as being crafted only by Magnolia-coloured hands, has a tendency to casually borrow from cultures that they find aesthetically pleasing, without thinking about the context or hiring experience from the backgrounds they find so inspirational.
“I aim to shed light on what it is like walking in the shoes of a black woman within architecture”
Everyone will have used or heard the term “tribal”, “boho” or “ethnic”, but do they know where these actually come from and what they mean?
Tribal is a blanket term usually applied to crafts from the African continent. Quite often, you will see traditional textiles and patterns being used, such as the Kuba cloth, to denote a tribal aesthetic. Such cloth is created by the Kuba people of the Congo and requires a technique that is very time consuming and laborious.
Boho comes from Bohémien, a French word referring to a group of people who travelled from a region in the Czech Republic known as Bohemia. Later, this term broadened to include the artist, writer, actor, or musician, often poor, who led a nomadic lifestyle making stops at major European cities. Bohemian design today is about incorporating many different things from different philosophies, parts of the world, and ways of life. The result is an eclectic style that’s as diverse as the people who inspire it. Note the key word there – diverse.
Crafts are translated by the industry as interior design, quite often without the correct exposure or recognition
Ethnic design is influenced by patterns, motifs and handicrafts from non-industrialised cultures, drawing its ideas from indigenous communities across South America, Africa and Asia. For example, Persian rugs – also known as Iranian Carpets produced in Iran (historically known as Persia) – are rugs of various types that were woven in parallel by nomadic tribes, in village and town workshops, and by royal court manufactories alike. They represent miscellaneous, simultaneous lines of tradition, and reflect the history of Iran and its various people.
From a quick dig into the history of these styles, it is clear that they stem from traditional local crafts in the countries that they originate from. These crafts are translated by the industry as interior design, quite often without the correct exposure or recognition given to these hardworking, talented men and women.
My question is if you take inspiration from another culture, are you giving them enough credit? Or are you inadvertently suppressing the faces and voices of these cultures for your personal preference or gain?
It is our duty to proudly represent our diversity so that we can inspire and educate the younger generation
This pattern of repackaging cultural artefacts as trends has minimised the visibility of diversity within the industry, even though it has actually been present for years. Everyone that has an influence on how the industry is portrayed should investigate this tendency to erase creative people of colour, as they in some way or another have played their part in creating the misrepresentation of the industry.
Unfortunately, the past cannot be changed, but the narrative going forward can. I am calling upon our industry, including our major and trade media outlets, our social, our publications and our events to ensure that we collaborate, employ, contract, buy and promote diversely – and be vocal when we see that we are failing to do so.
I also call upon other BAME designers such as myself, who are already a part of the industry, to come forward and be visible. It is our duty to proudly represent our diversity so that we can inspire and educate the younger generation – and their families – that a creative career is for everyone. In doing so, we may eventually get to a stage where we will only be recognised for our talents and not the colour of our skin.
Main image is by Juliet Murphy.
Bhavin Taylor is the founder of award-winning interior design studio Bhavin Taylor Design, based in London. Taking inspiration from his Indian heritage and with his extensive experience in both the fashion and interiors industry, Bhavin creates unique spaces that are bursting with personality, according to his motto “Love Colour. Embrace Pattern.”
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We need to provoke discussion, not anger, when it comes to talking about diversity, says Michelle Ogundehin, who shares her personal experiences with racism, views on positive discrimination and ways in which individuals can make a difference. So, let’s talk about diversity in design. I am a woman of mixed-heritage (my father was black Nigerian, my […] More
The interiors of future houses will be designed to mitigate coronavirus, says Michelle Ogundehin who has outlined 11 ways the pandemic will impact the home. The home played a pivotal role in the recent global crisis. Forced to double as office, school, gym, even restaurant, whether it felt safe or suffocating, it came under forensic examination, and […] More
Interior design will evolve, innovate, adapt and improve in 2020, says Michelle Ogundehin. Her trend report includes provocative collaborations, Ukrainian design and a rejection of digital technology. The dawn of a new decade invariably gives rise to a whole host of grandiose pronouncements about new trends and cultural shifts for the next ten years, and true to […] More
