In Commercial Interior Design, considerations must reach beyond any one specific facility. The general business community, the greater community identity and the desired “character” of that community all matter when your Interior designer is considering an individual business member’s Interior design project.
Why does that matter? What is the connection and importance between one commercial Interior and that of its adjacent business’s Interior – and the surrounding Exterior environment? Well, the “connection” is broad, inherent and complex!
Every community has a very specific profile – impression, personality or image – that translates outwardly. That phenomenon has power! Community members – residential and business alike – view their community with the specific focus of where they trade, shop, eat or play. “Outsiders” – visitors, tourists, randomly present purveyors, contractors and incidental others, such as emergency services and special event attendees receive impressions of a community through very different perspectives!
Somewhere between their entry and exit, there are indelible impressions that are carried with them, expressed elsewhere and that influence their (and others’) potential arrival or avoidance in that community, in the future.
How a community welcomes, hosts, entertains, serves, feeds and houses its visitors, visiting labor or tourists can be the lifeblood of its commercial health, its tax base and its reputation! Every opportunity to assure and insure an inviting and winning overall community environment should be taken seriously.
Also influenced by a community’s “presentation” are the rhythms of residence: what keeps folks living there, and what motivates them to move on.
When the Exterior – and most obvious – community environment’s personality is beautiful, inviting, intriguing and pragmatic, it leads people to our Interiors: our restaurants, our shops, our public services and accommodations, our entertainment venues, our wineries. It can be as considerate as public bathrooms and as complex as emergency hospital care. The connections between a community’s Exteriors and Interiors are obvious, important and speak to a community’s overall health.
For our permanent community residents, their basic issues of convenience, needed commodities, safety, emergency services, education, recreation (and many other basics) mandate both availability and quality. If those expectations fail in some specific or general way, folks seek them elsewhere.
Anything from rock hard seats in community gathering venues, to poorly maintained (or unavailable) public toilets, unsafe parks or poorly inventoried retail resources can place a community at risk for an insufficient economic base, increased crime and serious decline.
The contrasts can be extreme – from ideal to disastrous. It makes sense to look at all opportunities for striving for the former and avoiding the latter!
By linking a community’s various aspects, Interiors and Exteriors, and equally attending improvement, development, variety, accommodation and maintenance, it can almost guarantee a community character that helps that community achieve its identity goals.
Interior Design is a vital part of that essential linkage. Here, in our beautiful Lake County, we have incredible natural elements that give us an enviable framework for our residents, visitors and our important tourism aspect! Outside and inside – we have much to be proud of, much to offer and much to maintain.
We each own a piece of the pie! We each, in our own aspects, have potential to enhance our community’s character (and reputation!) with our own spin!
Interior Design shares the responsibility of considering the whole when considering a specific. Residents, visitors and tourists walk into our town and through our doors – lets make them happy!
Robert Boccabella, B.F.A. is principal and founder of Business Design Services and a certified interior designer in private practice for over 30 years. Boccabella provides Designing to Fit the Vision© in collaboration with writingservice@earthlink.net. To contact him call 707-263-7073; email him at rb@BusinessDesignServices.com or visit www.BusinessDesignServices.com or on Face Book at Business Design Services.
