Harmony for a home: effective design and architectural planning
By Adele Lau and Karmen Tsai
Livia Wong’s building designs that she dreams may be turned into reality one day
"Understanding the concept of both (interior and exterior design) is what creates harmony for a home."- Renee Poon in REAL: Passion for Architecture.
Behind all perfect buildings lies a talented architect and an interior designer. As people who might have grown up in a lovely city like Hong Kong, famous for its architecture and skyscrapers, we rarely acknowledge the challenging work and long process our interior and exterior designers have to go through. The research of the client is crucial for interior designers to make sure that everything meets the targeted audience expectations. As for the architects, researching the environment and area the building will be located at will help map out the floor plan of the final product.
The RCHK Year 9 REAL classes, ‘Passion for interior design’ and ‘Passion for architecture’ aimed to create a project in the form of scale physical, artistic drawings or computer design models.
Interior design and architecture intertwine with each other in a couple of ways. “It’s kind of like when you stand in TST and you look across to Central and you look at every single building, that’s the outlook, that’s the exterior of things. But then the space of the interior, as in the amount of space, and the shape of the space we have, is determined by the exterior in a way,” expressed supervising teacher Anna Chan.
Sophie Liu designing an apartment for three.
The job of an architect is to build an entire building and decide how big each room is, they decide whether the room is going to have a curved window or a straight window, and for interior design if the room is not designed in a decent way, it’ll be harder on them to pick out furniture or even the entire way the room looks.
"It is very easy to take our environment for granted, for example things as simple as if you're right-handed, your lamp should be shining on your right-hand side," said Chan.
To help with their assignment, students in the class were tasked to research, design, experiment, model ideas by listening to experts, thinking from different perspectives, and talking to clients.
Step 1: Ensuring that you are aware of your client's wants and needs is essential when designing the inside of a space. Whether it is an industrial look or a japandi style, the first step will constantly identify what type of room theme the client is looking for. To plan out the look of an area, crafting mood boards and deciding between colour swatches is the safest way to hope for a well thought out result. A mood board can include the type of colour scheme, furniture, style your client wants to have.
Elin Jones painted a log cabin/holiday home that reminded her of when her family used to go on for week long vacations.
Step 2: Measurements will come in hand. The architects carved out the building's measurements, which are then handed over to the interior designer, measuring the furniture that would fit the area. Creating a floor plan will best help the vision of how space should be utilized. This is where architects and interior designers have to work together. A designer has to prioritize the function when redesigning as the room be easy for one to use to serve its purpose.
Janice Chu created a pond with many resources such as rocks and pebbles
"People and environment are more important than aesthetics," states Design teacher and activity supervisor Boyd Jerman. As much as interior design and astounding architectures require aesthetics, it is one's best interest at heart to "put functionality first."
Step 3: The most enjoyable part of interior designing is assembling the room and purchasing furniture that matches the client's theme.
Participating students gained fresh appreciation of the processes required for effective design and architectural planning. “It is interesting as an interior designer to know how other people perceive and like different furniture regarding their theme,” said Cyrus Li.