Project: Surreal Botany

The role of the interior designer is multifaceted. To cope with this, designer needs to equip with domain skills such as analyzing, planning and designing, communication skill with client, specialists and suppliers, as well aw flexible, creative and artistic.

However, the most important role as a designer is still to make the works personal and reflect their own reality from the work. The appearances, concepts and techniques will change case by case, but the personality of design which derived from the education and understanding of interior design industry as well as the culture and custom of the designer, as a significant symbol to identify a designer from the rest is hardly modified. Louis Kahn once mentioned: ‘can you recognize the personal in a man’s work?’ implying the importance of ‘personal’ which deeply influenced the designers when they make their design decisions.

Good design can communicate with people itself. In this extend, designer’s main challenge is to listen to the particular space and find out its characteristics first, and at this basis endows it with value and concept, showing the personality of the work’s as well as the designer’s.

As a design student with general art background, I always prefer to add in aesthetics and story rather than pure function in my project. Take the Surreal Botany as example which developed the narrative spaces from several sculpture-like models, some interesting and exciting moments are created (shown in images). Since I aimed to allow the space itself telling the story, the main challenge in this project is to develop each model into a space or a feature, and then connect them meaningfully, properly and functionally.