We take a huge gamble if we don’t learn from experience! Since the only constant in life is change, we are rife with opportunity. Our most recent decade has delivered the violence of weather by fire, flood, hurricane, earthquake, tornado, drought, and overall radical environmental changes – plus, a multi-year pandemic. And it certainly feels sobering when we make one, long list
So, what do I mean by Anticipation Interior Design? Experience has shown us what the phenomena, above mentioned, have wrought, brought and mandated. Everything from community infrastructure demolished, to structures decimation, to natural habitat destroyed to lives lost has presented “unforeseen challenges.”
Anything exterior of anything involved, eventually if not immediately, impacts all Interior aspects of the overall environment. In almost all aspects we — quite simply — are driven inside; and in all of it our role has usually been reactive. It does not have to be that way.
We just have to get much better at Anticipation! Anticipation can be a much more pro-active concept than just the awful fear of what might be about to happen or the fear of an approaching season, newly labeled. It can be the discipline to thoroughly analyze and examine past experiences and the details to be considered for positive Anticipation — preparation, preventions and management. There must be a driving force that enhances, strengthens and better facilitates smart preparatory action. That driving force has to be us.
Our first responders to natural disasters – Fire management, Law enforcement, Flood mitigation and such, have advanced disaster preparation and mitigation brilliantly! Our Lake County communities have benefited greatly with tighter, upgraded strategies.
We have all experienced that last-minute version of preparation! Grab this from here, and that from there! Do we have everything? Anything really important been forgotten? Whether it was evacuation or shelter-in-place, it ran havoc on our BP.
Well, most preparation, as I see it, focused mainly on exterior considerations. Inside, we essentially “made do” with the Interior chaos that usually accompanied the relevant warnings, alerts and advisories. Most of us have adjusted to the packed vehicles and mounds by the door. You know the history. The usual tools – weather forecasting, notices from Law Enforcement and Fire authorities, etc. – go as far as they can go to help us prep.
Generally, personal and business Interior environments must take up the responsibility and go much further.
Our Interior environments offer many, many ways to improve our positive Anticipation of disasters.
It is almost ancient history now, but during historical war years, there were real threats and fears about war actually reaching our shores. Homeowners and business proprietors took many positive steps that related to protection and shelter within their homes and commercial establishments. For instance, concrete basements were fortified as immediate bomb shelters where food and water and bedding and other necessities were stored.
For generations, Oklahomans and others in tornado country had underground bulkhead shelters when one was headed their way.
While there is much we can do as our Interior environments presently exist, there are many solutions still to be addressed in the face of the newer and awesome realities of our recent decade. The list is long – and much is doable. Clearly, as commented above, we have literally been driven inside in some “seasons” by radical weather. It has become obvious that our Interiors no longer share as equally with our Exterior time spent!
Your Interior design experts are looking intensely at how our historically typical Interiors (residential and commercial) do not fully address and accommodate our new, harsh climate realities. They, and other experts in the construction industries, are seeing the new demands put on our Interior living and work spaces. Innovative adaptations must be developed to accommodate the harsher realities that impact our Interior environments in all aspects, as never before.
As each Interior is unique, each Anticipation assessment can and should be an adventure in the search for appropriate preparatory solutions. We need to acknowledge that disaster frequency has weakened our wail of: OMG! Unforeseen! (Really?)
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.
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