The design in everyday life

Parking garages in Bali to airport bathrooms in Paris, and a 7/11 in Copenhagen.

Travel does something magical to you. The more you travel the more you learn to see excitement in what is otherwise everyday to life.

In September I was sitting at lunch with Maria, the head of comms at Desa Potato Head, where I was staying in Seminyak. Bali and writing about the hotel for Surface Mag.

I said to her, “Have you thought about how insane the parking garages are at the airport?” She looked at me confused, and I get why, we were after all sitting looking out over the Indian ocean on chairs designed by Faye Toogood, and I was talking about the aesthetics of airport parking garages.

Later, I mentioned how the first trip I took to Copenhagen changed my life. It was the first tangible example I witnessed of what I had always believed– everyday design can be beautiful and functional, we shouldn’t have to choose.

She looked at me and said, “Maybe that’s a story for you.”

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The parking garage at Ngurah Rai International Airport features a terraced design incorporating vegetation and natural elements to blend modern infrastructure with traditional Balinese aesthetics. Shockingly, I can’t find a single story about the design online or who the architects behind it is.

C’mon. Now how fab are these subway station seats in Paris. AND the matching tiles??! Perfection.

A prerequisite for designing an airport bathroom in the U.S. should be taking a trip to Charles de Gaulle’s women’s restrooms. The glossy pink and red stalls. The center inverted sinks. Something about it screams W Hotels in the 90s, but also timeless and functional.

This is going to sound crazy, but hear me out. Anytime anyone asks me about Copenhagen (my favorite city in the world!), along with a google maps list, they also receive these two images. Of course there’s that famous photo spot on the canal with all the colored houses, but to me, this is Copenhagen. A 7/11 in a brutalist cement roof building with floor to ceiling glass windows. It looks more like an Apple Store or Concept shop. “Everything just makes sense in Copenhagen,” is what I always say.

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While these particular examples exist in other countries, the truth is, you don’t have to go far to find excitement in the design of everyday life, you just have to be willing to get out of your routine environment, or even off the typical route you take walking home, and perhaps this is the most important part– you have to be willing to pay attention to your curiosity.