My signature style and philosophy POETIC MODERNISM® drives my design and process. I define it as spatial poetry, a nurturing lifestyle to improve, and recharge one’s life by warm, calming modern design. Like poetry, it’s an approach to process experiences and emotions and it helps me to understand my clients on a deeper level. I don’t have technology or body sensing equipment but what I do is study their sense of life.
To do so in the featured project, I interviewed my clients in two parts — to attain information to design the ultimate calming spa experience.
Part one, I ask them what makes them say “wow” like art, fashion, places they have been.
Part two, is the study of poetics. I want to understand what it is that makes my client feel nurtured. We humans are nurtured by nature as a common denominator, and I start with images of the fundamental elements of the universe- fire, water, earth, air, and space. I map how their senses respond to their experiences of these elements. I tend to see patterns of emotion and preferences towards materials, colors, sounds, aromas and translate it into the design in a tactile, visual, and visceral way.
Essentially mapping their gut emotions, I discovered this client was attracted to neutral colors with an added pop, patterned and dimensional surfaces, combined smooth and textured surfaces, upstate foliage, water features, natural landscapes, and smells of musk. They are also attracted to Japanese elements in a hotel they stayed at.
By re-experiencing an awe inducing experience from their past brings positive emotions. Ultimately this biological approach produces interior design to nurture, recharge, and fuel productivity–all leading to feeling good in your spaces.
Creating this spa bathroom was an application of function, aesthetics, and poetics. The outcome was a space where everything has a reason and nothing more. It is simplistic, nurturing and calming. It features a slanted freestanding tub alongside a moss wall and kintsugi tiles used throughout the entire bathroom floor. The kintsugi tiles are used as a lesson to find self-help and wellness. Kintsugi is a Japanese word that means repair– using golden joinery to repair pottery. This couple will go into their oasis feeling exhausted and broken and come out recharged and nurtured from all of the therapies integrated into the design—steam therapy, aroma therapy and chroma therapy and the sounds of music.