<\/p>\nEvery single project we do is one off, so I’m trying to understand what the clients are saying when they\u2019re not using words. There is always an undercurrent in what they\u2019re telling me, and that\u2019s what I\u2019m trying to get at, trying to understand. It\u2019s easy for someone to say to me \u2018I want yellow in my home,\u2019 but I look to find out why, what it is about yellow they\u2019re drawn to, what emotional response that they\u2019re looking to get from it. And then what other things can be used to help the design go in that direction. They often won\u2019t know these things themselves, so I\u2019m looking to compose a harmony from the melodies they\u2019re giving me.<\/p>\n
Is that a useful way that anyone could design their own home? To go deeper than than their responses to aesthetics?<\/p>\n
Absolutely. Start with an emotional reference – images of objects or phystical things you love that are already around your place. Try and capture what it is about that thing that you respond to, that makes you feel like you, that makes you feel how you want to, or even gives you your identity. From that, you can distill similar or complementary things that do the same job, to enhance that original item. There is always one random thing like this that starts a project.<\/p>\n
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(Image credit: Eric Petshek\/Design by Unionworks)<\/p>\n
Your projects often feel more curated than decorated. How do you know when a space is \u201cdone\u201d?<\/p>\n
Design expertise in your inbox \u2013 from inspiring decorating ideas and beautiful celebrity homes to practical gardening advice and shopping round-ups.<\/p>\n
Never! It\u2019s really true, we have a client who we\u2019ve been reworking and refreshing and redoing for a long time. I think our approach to design is different, our clients are different, and they continue to change a bit over time. You grow into a space, you accumulate pieces from trips and experiences, you bring them with you into a space. You need to take time to make a space feel like you. A home is often about tangible experiences, a shell on your shelf that you found on a beach walk that sparks a memory of that day.<\/p>\n
You\u2019ve said before that you like spaces to feel quiet and grounded. What are the key elements that help you create that kind of atmosphere?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard to define, but you you\u2019ll notice that it feels good in the spaces – when you\u2019re in them, they feels good. There is a lot of attention to the tactile qualities and to all the different finishes, which helps. It\u2019s also important to have things made by hand. There has to be some trace to have a sense of human production. We don\u2019t do spaces that are clean-lined and perfectly smooth. In my own life I like a variety of my own objects and experiences. I like threads that start to come together – sometimes repeating colors, patterns, various palettes being played with in different ways. We don\u2019t design for the wow moments, we design for a quiet volume.<\/p>\n
And what is it about those \u2018marks of the maker,\u2019 as it were, that appeals so much?<\/p>\n
It feel like real life, like real stuff, and it carries stories of where the pieces came from. Anything that you can feel was another person\u2019s making, that has a sense of childlike quality and play. We don\u2019t need everything around us to be perfectly smooth, it\u2019s good to have things that are a little awkward, they may not be speaking the same vocabulary as those next to them.<\/p>\n
What are the pieces in your own life that are special to you, that bring that sense of groundedness for you?<\/p>\n
I have some ceramics that are very special to me, made by my brother, and another piece made by my friends. There is one vessel that has been in my life since I was a teenager, and went to the Philadelphia Museum of Art with my parents, who bought it. That memory is so special to me.<\/p>\n
Where do you tend to source these sorts of pieces for clients? Where\u2019s good to go?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s fun to shop in Belgium, and really fun to shop in France – both in Paris and the south. And the Netherlands has amazing vintage pieces. I would love to go on a sourcing trip to South America. And Japan. And London! I like a good smorgasbord, I like variety.<\/p>\n
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(Image credit: Read McKendree\/Design by Unionworks)<\/p>\n
One of the most compelling things about your work is your use of subtle texture – hand-finished plaster, honed stone, brushed wood. What draws you to this kind of material honesty?<\/p>\n
Plaster in all iterations is good right now – it has a scent, it\u2019s fascinating how people are responding to it. I\u2019m also obsessed with cork, having spent time in Portugal where it\u2019s used more widely. I\u2019m thinking about using it to thickly clad surfaces, making furniture with it. I\u2019m also looking at it for a showroom project as little penny tiles on a floor. <\/p>\n
In several of your projects, natural light becomes almost an architectural feature. How do you approach working with light as a material?<\/p>\n
I do believe that light exists as a material. I think it\u2019s been the case for a long time, it’s an unconscious reaction I have. In my own life I use light very sparingly, and am changing our office to a Ketra lighting system that will match the light inside to what is outside. I really think one of the things we want to lean into is creating a basic system in the four corners of the room that follows a Ketra system, then to layer warmth on top of it. I\u2019m really interested to put that into space and see. You need volume to the way you light.<\/p>\n
And finally, if someone walked into a room you\u2019d designed, what\u2019s the one thing you\u2019d hope they feel?<\/p>\n
I hope they take a deep breath, and feel comfortable, and that they\u2019d feel good, and that there is something that might catch their eye.<\/p>\n
See more of Poonam’s work at Unionworks<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Poonam Khanna is the founder of Unionworks, a multidisciplinary design studio based in New York that is celebrated…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77252,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[76,354,355,49,48,356,75],"class_list":["post-77251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-design","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77251\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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