Form and Function: Tom Langrell on Kind Design and How to Cultivate Kindness in A Design Practice

In the realm of design, the concept of kindness may seem somewhat unconventional, yet it holds profound implications for the way spaces are conceived and experienced. Tom Langrell, one of Republic’s interior designers, shares his insights into how cultivating kindness can fundamentally shape the practice of design. From fostering inclusivity to empathetically addressing clients’ needs, Tom delves into the intricate interplay between form and function, shedding light on the pivotal role of kindness in creating spaces that resonate with the human experience. In this interview, he articulates the nuanced dynamics between design and kindness, offering a compelling perspective on the transformative potential of empathetic design practices.

Q1: Is your design kind?

Tom: This is not something that a lot of people think of applying when resolving elements of any design, I think. In the same breath, like all design especially when it comes to interior design, the foundation of that is human behaviour. To a certain degree you need to be empathetic to what your clients’ needs and wants are. You need to try to reverse engineer what some of those needs and wants are and then apply those to the physical articulation of the space.

When it comes to kindness in the way that we design spaces, I think there are a lot of different ways you could approach that. Whether it’s general inclusivity, a lot of that comes through and articulated, and it’s becoming more established within the design community in terms of inclusivity for everybody, with every kind of means of mobility or otherwise.

Kindness has an emotional aspect to it; you’re trying to make people feel as though the space is responding to their needs. It’s the balancing of designs, where on one end of the spectrum you have a purely functional design, and on the other end there’s form. This is something that, as a designer, you’re always trying to balance when you design a space. Somewhere in the middle, there’s a happy medium, equal parts experiential as it is useful, and where kindness falls in there it’s a bit difficult to define but is something that we can continue to explore.

Q2: Would you say kindness is tied to budget?

Tom: To a certain degree. Some of the first things that get stripped out of projects are those softer touches, those expressive moments, a space you’re trying to make into something nice but it’s not necessarily on the functional side. Budgetary constraints is a factor that comes into play on almost every project, to some degree.

Q3: Would you say that designing for function can be synonymous with kindness?

Tom: Again, to a certain degree. There are elements of fundamental functionality where you’re responding to a client’s needs, especially when you’re designing for a specific purpose. Design is dependent on the client’s ability to articulate what those needs are. Inherently, you must respond to those defined needs, so there’s that element of kindness. By, essentially, reciprocating and listening to what your clients’ needs are, and making sure those needs are met in the space that you design, that’s how kindness is incorporated.

Q4: Which existing systems prevent kind design?

Tom: I think there’s stigma reinforced by the general acceptance of parts of office culture that drive things away from kindness. There’s a big shift right now within the general design of offices to try and make them more flexible spaces that cater to a wider range of human needs, especially on a daily use basis. There’s a movement to provide more flexible areas where you can work in different styles, not just a cubicle assigned to you.

There is a behavioural aspect to this, like territorial behaviour towards one’s space and wanting to occupy the same space. I want to sit at the desk that I like best, and I have trouble getting out of that box, even though we have completely flexible seating and work areas [at Republic]. On the one hand, there’s kindness to yourself when you’re building a little habitat in the workplace, but does that build a kind workplace culture? It seems directly oppositional. There are elements of that which you try to offset in terms of the way spaces are designed, but inherently those are still behavioural aspects that will continue to persist with people. You need to reinforce cultural changes alongside new designs to reinforce different behaviours, or help break learned behaviours developed from traditional uses of spaces.

Change management happens in tandem with the design progression where we often have to do workshops with end-users, especially when the way that they work is about to change fundamentally. People would argue it’s for the better, but it’s also natural that people can and will be averse to change. It comes down to human behaviour and some other limiting factors that in some cases, fully prevent us from employing these strategies.

There’s also this new dichotomy of working from home versus working in the office. The question following the pandemic: why would I ever go back to the office? I think there are arguments for the kindness of being in an office environment, having that human interaction can be more conducive to collaboration. There are also times when kindness looks like hunkering down in your basement to focus, without distractions, to get your work done. I think providing people with that flexibility is still incredibly important.

Q5: How do you meaningfully build kindness into your practice?

Tom: Ultimately, the driving factor of kindness in design and having a successful design is accomplished through listening and empathizing with what your clients are saying. There may be a level of interpretation required when clients have difficulty articulating exactly what they want. Sometimes you have to read between the lines while also applying their requirements. You see this often with private clients who don’t have familiarity with the construction industry, so you try to get as much information out of individuals as you can so you can identify their needs. The same clients typically have difficulty with interpreting documentation.

As designers, there’s a certain level of kindness that we need to employ and are responsible for in terms of our communication with clients. Design is a vulnerable place, especially when someone is investing their own money.

Q6: Would you say there’s been an evolution or are we seeing more of it [kind design] now because of mandates/requirements, or just in general?

Tom: I would say it’s both. Ultimately, the way we have to design from a baseline is to meet jurisdictional requirements. All our drawings will go through some form of permitting, no matter where we’re sending those drawings and specifications.

As time has progressed, more and more jurisdictions are adopting stringent accessibility policies and that’s, by nature, of the way building code is evolving, which is to be more inclusive. In the interior design hemisphere, a lion’s share of the work we do [at Republic] is a fit-up or renovation. We’re taking an existing space and changing it to meet x requirements. The grey area is recognizing when some things are not changing, do they need to be changed to meet accessibility standards? That kind of conversation is one we often have with clients, the grey area where accessibility standards can be applied to certain spaces. As an example, with government projects, you’re not only following the jurisdictional requirements for the building code, but you also have a government standard on top of it.

To a certain degree, you still need to design with the assumption that many buildings and facilities are going through accessibility audits and upgrades. There’s always that push-and-pull between existing elements that are non-compliant and new elements that we’re designing for. 

Q7: How would you differentiate design that barely meets ethical standards from design that embodies kindness?

Tom: It comes down to the baseline for functional design. You can design a space that meets everyone’s needs but it doesn’t go the extra mile.

As a designer, I try to put myself in the shoes of the people who are going to be using the space and interacting with it. I try to think – if I were coming to this office, how would I want to feel; what am I seeing when I turn this corner; is this going to be a nice view; is this going to be a tunnel-like corridor? There are ways of creating volumes of space that are more palatable.

We’re currently working on a facility in Toronto and one area has 20-foot ceilings. If you have a smaller space, you have to drop that ceiling down, so you don’t create a weird tunnel effect. If you don’t bring that down a bit, you’re going to feel tunneled in that space and that can bring about some negative feelings. For designers, it’s an automated response to that condition, but being aware of those conditions, and how people will feel and interact with the space is necessary. You want some elements to be warm, you want to have a breakout area that maybe feels cozier, more like home, where people can have a space where they can relax.

There are a lot of different ways that I think we can try to embody kindness when it comes to design, but again, it takes thought and goes beyond just directly responding to the x, y, and z of what you have to design. The decisions we make, even if it’s as subjective as aesthetics, at the end of the day you’re trying to create a cohesive design, and you’re trying to make material applications that are going to be both durable and functional. Ideally, they’re also aesthetically pleasing and don’t cause averse reactions to them.

Q8: What kind of metrics could be used to show the successes of kind design?

Tom: I think one of the biggest pitfalls of what we do as designers is that often our involvement in projects ends at what I would say is one of the most critical points, which is when the space starts being used. We seldom get to see how spaces are interacted with and how they’re functioning.

There are post-occupancy walkthroughs that some designers and firms will try to employ where you can come back to the space and see how it’s actually being used. Inevitably, when spaces are occupied, there are little tweaks. Clients and the inhabitants of those spaces will realize a new need that they’ve now identified which was not identified during the design process.

Spaces are living beings within themselves. The people who use those spaces are also going to change, staff will change and with new staff come new and differing needs. That aspect of design is something I wish, as a designer, I had more opportunities to go back and visit spaces in two or three years after occupancy. To have the opportunity to learn more about those elements of how our space is being used, because I think, ultimately, that knowledge will help us design better spaces.

Q9: Is there a project you can think of that you worked on, that infused kindness into the design?

Tom: One project I can think of is the work we did at Government House. It was more personal in the way we had to interact with the client because Government House functions like a pseudo-residential, heritage project. There’s the involvement from the Government of Manitoba who was funding the project, and the inhabitant of the home is part of the government system, so it became a hybrid of many different things. Even while there are certain standards we had to follow from a technical standpoint, it’s still a place that someone is living, so there are personal ideas and requests we had to respond to.

I think the resulting design was very successful in terms of the differing needs of the space. An example is the commercial kitchen, it had to be done in a way that felt soft enough that the residents of the home had a banquette seating area where they could sit and have coffee, but also maintain the functionality of a commercial-level kitchen. It’s functioning at a commercial scale while having a personal, cozy feel. You make sure you are catering to both of those needs.