Author: Roisin Lafferty

RTE Supergarden 2016

I am delighted to be back on the RTE Supergarden judging panel this year for the third year representing Cuprinol.

Things have been changed up and now I am side by side with the incredibly talented and lovely Leonie Cornelius, award winning garden designer representing Woodies and Gary Graham, Founder and Manager of Bloom. Filming has been great fun meeting back up with the crew and getting to know this year’s designers. I am looking forward to seeing it on air this week, so much talent and design inspiration to unfold!

What I am looking for?

Supergarden is a fantastic opportunity for emerging design talent, providing amateur and new designers a platform to show off their design skills, deal with clients and deliver finished results. It’s the ideal place to learn and gain hands on skills in the real world.

The design world can be competitive and challenging as well as thrilling and fun. For me, I am looking for designers with the right balance of creativity, determination and passion. Being on site is very far removed from the luxury of the drawing board. Rarely do things go according to plan so it is really a test of crisis management, thinking on your feet and team work.
You are only as good as the people you are working with so hopefully they all get a lot of support throughout the job.

I am also looking for people who want to push and blur boundaries between interior and exterior spaces. Gardens are more and more an extension of your living environment. With more people getting glass extensions and maximising natural light, it is crucial to extend the feeling of space and the feeling of home. Let’s face it, Ireland is a beauty but we are not blessed with the weather. A well designed garden should lend itself to being looked at and appreciated from inside!

Lighting is a key element to enhance this and to further extend the feeling of space at night. Rather than looking out at a black box, lighting allows the garden to be appreciated at any hour.

The designers need to design and create Bloom worthy show gardens but also remember that these gardens are part of people’s homes. It is important that they deliver to the homeowner’s brief, giving them a beautiful and well-designed garden to enjoy.

In design, there is nothing more thrilling and exciting than getting to see your vision brought to life, so I hope they also get to have fun and enjoy the process. I am hoping to see something new and inventive this year, with a strong use of colour and materials. This is the 10 year anniversary of Bloom so the bar is set high. I am looking forward to the competition unfolding!

How Interiors meet Exteriors

I am an interior architect by trade, so I often get asked how that relates to judging gardens on Supergarden. For me a well-designed layout is the most important consideration in any space, inside or out, commercial or residential. There is not a huge difference in designing either space. Designing spaces is about providing a positive experience for the user and taking them on a journey from start to finish. The same rules apply when designing a garden as designing a house or restaurant.

Like with interiors, it is easy to get side-tracked in the garden with finishes and decoration. But ultimately it is best to focus on the spatial layout and the landscape architecture. The layout is the foundation and that is going to dictate how you feel in the space, the journey and the experience that you have in the space. Materials and colour palette then follow once you are happy with the space itself.

I myself am very inspired by places I visit and spaces I spend time in. I am more and more influenced by restaurant and hotel design and love how creative these spaces can be. I particularly like how much the outside spaces are a continuation of the interior. Materials have come a long way and now are a lot more versatile and adaptable to exterior spaces. I love being able to use tiling and wall coverings in the garden, as well as continuing lighting effects into the outside space.

It is now a well-known fact that the garden is the fifth room in the house. I encourage clients to enhance their garden space so that it becomes an extension of their home. Cuprinol’s huge range of outdoor paint further emphasises this. Gone are the dark brown fences and stained decks. Now people have the same level of choice in colour outside as they do inside.

Keep an eye on the blog for weekly updates on my favourite aspects of each RTE Supergarden design, simple tips and tricks to improve your own space and some behind the scenes pics.

Pics by Andres Paveda, Al Higgins and Donal Murphy.

It is important to take stock and remember to say thank you to the important people in your life!

It is easy to get caught up in the day to day. I frequently get swept up in the craziness of work and forget about what matters most to me, which is people.

Without the love, support and distraction of friends and family, my life could quickly become a series of never ending work days! But my workaholic tendencies are my own doing!

However, we recently decided to pull together as a team and to give back and say thanks to my most important person… my mum. My mum, Patricia, is pretty much the biggest legend of all time, and yes I am slightly biased! I grew up with my mum, brother and grandad and my little family have been my rock throughout everything I have faced so far. One of the most selfless people I know, mum has always put my brother and I first, spoiled us with kindness and general mumminess! She continues to provide that sense of safety and comfort even in my adult years. Hers is truly the job that never ends! And for this, I felt the need to show my thanks.

 

A very glamorous lady, she takes care of herself personally but had never created her own space to enjoy. The busy household was always more important than spending the time and money on her own room. Her bedroom had been the same for as long as I could remember. Think yellow walls, wine carpet, mis-matched furniture and lots of busy clutter and brick a brack. It became the space odd bits and bobs ended up and it has continued to build up over the years.

I got into my head that it would be the best surprise to give the room a makeover secretly for her.  I started making a plan with the team about how we could do it and when it would be possible. We got very excited, moreso about surprising her. So when she booked her holidays, we started getting the plan into action. Complete overhaul was in order.

The main issue we faced was making sure not to throw too many things out. Mum holds a lot of emotional attachment to things, especially gifts and memories from loved ones. In order for the design to work, we needed to give the appearance of a streamlined space but still provide enough storage to house everything important to her.

BEFORE:

The room was anything but calming. I wanted to provide her with a calming, serene environment to unwind in and shut off from the world.

 

Because the room was so full, it was difficult to appreciate some of the lovely antique furniture pieces.

 

 

 

 

The guys seemed to enjoy the destructive part of the work!

 

Goodbye to the old carpets, wardrobes, book cases, curtains….

 

The joinery design was as seamless as possible to maximise the feeling of space. We designed handle-less doors with push to open mechanism and selected a calming but deep colour tone from Dulux for a spray finish. We disguised the media and TV unit behind retractable doors.

 

We opted to keep the antique furniture and add some character and history to the space. We got the wing backed chair re-upholstered with studding details.

 

 

We wanted to add comfort and a hint of luxury to the space so designed this studded, button back headboard to work with the existing bed.

We had a full height mirror panel fitted opposite the window to bounce around natural light, and increase the feeling of size.

A big thanks to all that helped including the expanding KLD team, Dulux for kindly supplying the paint, East Coast Upholstery, Brendan Farrell, Moore O’Gorman Joinery and TC Matthews.

We managed to get it all done in one very busy week without letting the cat out of the bag! See the video to see her reaction! A big thanks to Evoke.ie for featuring recently!

 

 

In a world so driven by technology, it is nearly impossible to truly find a minute to stop and breathe.
Less than two weeks in after the Christmas break and it is straight back into being constantly ‘active’ and contactable.

Of course there are so many benefits and advantage to our increasing technological world, but sometimes I find it a little too much.

 
I read a very interesting article in Kinfolk recently by my biggest design inspiration Ilse Crawford about this very subject:

 
“Technology development is hugely important – as is the etiquette around it and making parameters where you are not defined by it.It’s a set of tools – you exist independently of it.”
This is important to remember! For me myself, between all the social media channels, emails, netflix and everything else, I barely turn off technology when I am sleeping.. I even sleep next to my phone and check mails in bed.

It is proven that too much time spent absorbed in your phone and the cyber world can have negative effects on peoples mental health. There is constantly a need to compare your life and experiences with others. It is so important to have a space where you can wind down and just be. There is no better and more real place to do this than in the comfort of your own home.

 
I think it is time to focus on keeping the home a home. As well as being a functional and interactive space, the home should help you reconnect with both yourself and your family. There are a lot of emotional factors and associations with the feeling of ‘home’.

Spatial layouts have long since shifted to open plan, adaptable and highly functional designs. More emphasis is paid to the way the space can facilitate your efficient, busy and multi-tasking lifestyle than is paid to having some quiet time, enjoying a meal with your family or creating a calm environment to read and relax.

 
It makes me think that some separate rooms should be kept in a house. A calming, technology free space in a house is a must. Whether it is a contemporary take on the formal dining room; a designated space to enjoy the simple things in life – good food and conversation, a room to host and entertain friends or a tranquil television free bedroom.

Although we now have the power to constantly be contactable, constantly access the internet and constantly be ‘active’, sometimes the best thing for us is to shut off!

 

It has been a hectic few weeks at KLD but a very fun few! We are thrilled to announce that we are finalists for this years Fit Out Awards… and in four categories!
The awards are this Thursday and there is a certain buzz in the office; a mix of excitement of a much deserved team night out combined with the prospect of some awards.

The categories we are up for are the following:
– Fit out practice of the year – Kingston Lafferty Design
– Young fit out designer of the year – Roisin Lafferty
– International project of the year – Tootoomoo, London
– Residential project of the year – Ranelagh Residence

Tootoomoo Whetstone is a recently finished, Pan Asian restaurant that we completed. This was a very fun project to work on

The brief was to create a bustling restaurant + takeaway space showcasing Tootoomoo’s Pan Asian street food brand within the London suburb of Whetstone. The fourth addition to the Tootoomoo takeaway + restaurant chain, needed to expand their existing, loyal customer base and gain a name for itself for both the strong design and the Asian cuisine.

A key client objective was to refine and develop the existing identity and showcase the brand as a real contender within the competitive London restaurant market. The inspiration for the new restaurant comes from a mix of Asian influences including the bustling street markets of Bangkok, the well-known Singapore Shophouse architectural style, as well as Malaysian, Chinese, Japanese, Thai and Vietnamese influences. Authentic ethnicity was integral to the design (and also the food) and this was found using the right balance of Asian influence, which would marry successfully with the sophisticated London surroundings.

 

The other project that we are shortlisted for is Ranelagh Residence. Fingers crossed it is a good night!

We are currently all about the showhouse for the Ideal Home Show and with that comes some serious infatuation with all things animal! One of our collaborators for the show is the wonderful April and the Bear. They are supplying us with an array of animal inspired treats including a plaster dinosaur head, illustrations of animal skulls and some other animal ornaments. As well as that we are working with Find shop, who are lending us some of their wide range of animal skulls and horns for the DFS stand! I am super excited about getting to play with all of these props. It got me thinking how fun it is to incorporate animal items into interior spaces.

Here is a selection of our favourites, from animal prints to full scale giraffe models, cow hide rugs to full on real taxidermy. It is a trend that you can go to extremes with or else play and be silly. Whichever you feel more comfortable with, will still add impact, fun and silliness to any space. And let’s face it, everyone could do with a little humour in their home!

Follow Roisin Lafferty’s board Animals in Interiors on Pinterest.

Collaboration between DFS and KLD for the Autumn Ideal Homes Exhibition

I am super excited to say that we are currently collaborating with the fantastic DFS on this Autumn’s Ideal Homes Exhibition.

As very much a KLD team effort, we won the pitch to design the DFS Showhouse and the DFS 140m exhibition stand.

I am really excited to get my hands on the house and hopefully provide some inspiration and excitement at the show!

We will be taking on the Interior Architecture of the house and the Interior Design. Taking inspiration from the stunning new DFS look-book, we will be showcasing how the DFS furniture can be used in creative and fun ways, complimenting your own personal taste.

 

The aim for us is to create an exciting showhouse that has maximum impact for visitors, references some key trends and fresh ideas and overall gives visitors a fun and positive experience. So far it is proving to be very exciting.

We have gotten to know DFS a lot more recently and I have to say their products and style is impressive.

With existing collaborations with French Connection and The Sofa Workshop, they offer a wide range of styles and furniture that suits a vast array of styles. I am particularly in love with the Zinc French Connection cuddler… the perfect size for curling up!

 

It was their recent look-book that wowed me. With their fully styled sets and images, I saw the scope and versatility of what they can provide.

We are hoping to use their furniture pieces in an exciting unusual way, combining unexpected pieces with clever interior architecture and interior design to create an overall original and eclectic feel in both the house and the stand.

 

We are looking to team up further with some of our favourite interior suppliers and I am delighted to say that Mullan lighting are also on board to provide some stunning lighting features within the stand. Combining some of their well known statement pieces with some bespoke pieces that we are designing, the lighting is definitely going to pack a punch!

Lighting is definitely one of the most important interior elements for me. Not only can it completely transform atmospheres, it can add height and scale to a space. Mullan are well known for their industrial style pieces which will tie in really well with the other detailing.

Three of my favourite lights of the moment from Mullan are below.

Please click the links for more information; Ideal Homes Show, DFS, French Connection, Mullan Lighting

I will be updating the blog as the job progresses so check out all of the behind the scenes…

Roisin x