Setting the Stage

How much of design is about staging? I would argue all of design is staging. It’s hard not to concede the truth of Shakespeare’s observation that ‘all the world’s a stage.’ When we design, we’re simply setting the stage for what is going to take place within the parameters of our design. Even without the presence of actors to breathe life and meaning into a design – our perception of design is intertwined with our imagination of what could take place within. Design is a process of engaging the potential of a space to elicit purpose – be it noble and aspirational or something else.

Perhaps acting on this principle is the most obvious link between my career as an educator and as a designer. My entire career in education was dedicated to engaging individual potential; understanding and studying how factors such as the quality of spaces and individual interactions in those spaces played a key role. Of course in that context, the designated purpose was primarily to learn. The goal was for learning to take place in ways that were aligned with the mission and values of an institution.

What does the design of our spaces facilitate in terms of our ability to act with purpose and in alignment with our values? What does it communicate to the observer about the role of the aesthetic in our lives? Is it the goal of a design to generate an appreciation of something beautiful and/or is the presence of beauty that inspires something more purposeful to take place?

I argue that without purpose there is no such thing as beauty and without beauty, it is impossible to find purpose. Absent this connection, we can find things attractive and we can do things but within ourselves we do not experience the world the same way. Our three-dimensional world gets flattened into two dimensions; and with insufficient meaning. We are not inspired by things that look nice or by the act of purchasing things; except to perhaps purchase more nice things. We are inspired by what an appealing space welcomes us to do with our time; purchases are inspiring if they are in furtherance of another goal or objective.

Even if our clients don’t readily see the depth of connection between beauty and purpose (just as the students with whom I worked for many years often did not either), it is imperative for designers to understand this connection. It is the failure to consistently observe this connection or speak to this connection in our work that can sometimes paint interior designers as being vapid or only concerned with what is attractive, or worse yet simply trying to make a sale.

Once we connect purpose and beauty together, our definition of both beauty and purpose becomes so expansive it can encompass a whole world of human experience. The value of designers is demonstrated in creating spaces that fully integrate what individuals, organizations and cultures define as aesthetically beautiful as it relates to their purpose. The more designers can do that sans judgment, challenging ourselves to see beauty and purpose combined in all of its forms, the greater potential for us to be fully purposeful ourselves.