Wellbeing is at the heart of all that we do at Grigoriou Interiors, this is why we have chosen to tackle Sustainability Development Goal (‘SDG’) 3 – Good Health and Wellbeing as part of our commitments. We will be looking at what this means both internally as a company, as well as externally to what we can provide as a service within the interior design industry.
Internally, we will continually expand on our own internal practices during our workdays, including looking after our own wellbeing in ways such as taking a moment to ‘pause’ as a team during meetings. We also promote a culture that awards work-life balance, through allowing flexibility in work hours, prioritising the balance between work time, and rest time.
Externally, we tackle wellbeing through designing with occupant wellbeing in mind. We design for the health and comfort of the users of the space, aided by the creation of User Profiles which equip us with a wider understanding on how to support occupants in emotional and cognitive ways in addition to physical. Furthermore, through implementing our ‘a better place’ methodology we are able to comprehensively take into consideration all aspects that may impact an occupant’s wellbeing, both positively and negatively. As part of this we also specify healthy materials across the projects we work on. This is incredibly important as the foundations of a healthy design require the senses to not be harmed through unhealthy materials.
In terms of specific services, we offer work-from-home space consultations to clients who are seeking to feel well and work well from their home workspaces. We learn who they are and what they need in order to work productively and suggest tweaks to the design of their space which can enable them to thrive.
We seek to share this good practice on designing for wellbeing across the industry to other interior designers and architects who can easily integrate this way of thinking into their own work. This practice knowledge is shared through Elina Grigoriou’s book ‘Wellbeing in Interiors’, available through the RIBA bookshop. Further in-depth learnings are also available through our online ‘Design for Wellbeing ‘ course.
If this is a Goal you are supporting as well, how are you going about it in practice? We are always looking for inspiration to do better and would love to hear.
