Creating Environments

Through my day job, I've learned a lot over the past twelve years about creating environments. (It is a key part of what we do.)

Physical space evokes emotion. It also facilitate or hinders the activities that take place in it. With those two concepts in mind, I find myself focusing on the experience people have when they walk into a room and the core purpose of a space.

When John and I moved into our new house, we had the experience/purpose conversation about our dining room. We aren't big Sunday dinner people. However, we do have a lot of mixers/parties. We liked the idea of setting up a space for casual laughter and interesting conversations. This led to the "bistro" concept. We wanted people to walk into our house and get the feeling you get when you enjoy time with friends at an outdoor cafe.

Originally, we had a big fountain in the corner. However, the fountain proved to be high maintenance and we recently had to kiss it goodbye. (This was failed fountain #2, so I decided not to go for #3.)

Interacting with environments invokes all of your senses. Sight, textures, scents, sound... The loss of the fountain changed the sound. And, I missed it. A lot.

So, you know the kiosks in Target/Walmart/World Market where they sell music you wouldn't choose on the radio, but sounds wonderful as background music? We rearranged a bit and put a stereo in place of the fountain. As it turns out, ambient music is actually proving to be an acceptable substitute.

The best part? I no longer have to clean lime scale!