How to create great interior architecture, Tilla Goldberg?
Great interiors, even with a sustainable twist, can be hard to come by these days. We asked iF juror Tilla Goldberg, director of product design and brand spaces at Ippolito Fleitz Group, what it takes to be a great interior designer these days. She says it comes down to six principles.
When you think of interior architecture, think holistically!
We never think of products or objects on their own or in a vacuum. We never design without knowing the context. In everything we do, we understand what the surrounding space looks like. We know who the people are that will use it. From which direction the light comes in. This is obviously great because it allows us to design much more powerfully and purposefully and to develop a narrative.
For our brand spaces projects, we bring different disciplines to the table: architects, interior designers, material specialist, graphic and communication designers. Whether it's trade show booths, showrooms, or retail: one must be very close to the brand because you have to conceive a very strong narrative right from the start. Get inside the brand identity and then transport what’s there into space. We try to deeply understand identities and underscore them with spaces and objects.
Be as specific as possible.
When we design the interior for a large office building, we think about the atmosphere the space should breathe. What do you feel when you enter the building? What would the best possible welcome gesture be, what does the reception desk look like? From the reception area to lighting installations to a lounge: it’s often the first touchpoint where people linger.
When we see gaps in the market – products or furniture that don’t exist yet – we like to fill them ourselves. For instance, I developed a green room divider for Brunner – a modular system that we call PARA VERT – because we wanted to design a space with a lot of greenery, but we couldn’t find a room divider of this kind on the market. Open-plan workspaces practically call out for this kind of a divider. Now Brunner sells PARA VERT as a series product.
Structure processes to be sustainable.
I find this approach much more sensible than designing yet another side table; there are already plenty of those. First, we design custom-made solutions, and if something is developed that doesn’t exist on the market, we can derive a series product from it.
IFG bears a lot of responsibility for sustainability because we are often the ones making recommendations to clients. We always try to propose new solutions, and open up different ways of thinking for spaces and products.
Consider the future and use technology.
With the world population growing and people´s lifestyles becoming more diverse and more complex, we see ourselves as the ones to create living environments that create new possibilities. We love to inspire people with spaces and objects, exposing new ways of thinking and living. There are many questions out there, and the role of a designer is to try and provide ideas and encouraging solutions. Questioning the way we work, the way how people live together, travel, what kind of spaces we need, which objects and things are necessary.
In terms of inspiration, we also see that the digital extension of all our projects has become extremely important.
Before the pandemic, we designed a carpet collection for Object Carpet to be exhibited at the Salone del Mobile in Milan in 2020. The trade fair booth was unique, inspired by the arches of the dyeing machine (see photo below) which gives the carpet its beautiful, rich color. We were convinced that the physical exhibition was very important. We planned a campaign with the wonderful fashion photographer Monica Menez, initially only for the sample books.
Then Covid hit, and the fair was canceled. We developed the idea to shoot a short film instead. Monica had the models walk through this world of carpets and shot some absurd scenes with the carpets.
This completely unplanned, purely digital campaign reached a wide audience and opened many unexpected doors for Object Carpet, and for us as well.
Expand your horizon.
Curiosity is one of my main drivers in life. Even when I was still studying product design under Richard Sapper at the Art Academy in Stuttgart, I felt that I needed to experience different perspectives on how to do design.
I went to London working for Inflate and Ross Lovegrove, the total opposite of the rather Bauhaus academic approach.
My diploma project was a solar powered ferry boat, which is still running on the Lake Constance, and won numerous awards. But I didn´t want to be stuck to solar design. So I went to work in Tokyo and New York to experience even more different cultural design contexts.
Afterwards I set up my own small product design studio GOLDEN PLANET in Cologne, Germany. I think exploring the world and adopting diverse perspectives is the best basis for relevant new ideas!
Gain experience.
If you are curious, enthusiastic and love challenges, I’d encourage you to apply for an internship at Ippolito Fleitz Group in Stuttgart, Berlin or Shanghai.