Chasing Feelings
Why good design is more than the substance of things
Friday May 29
On the TV
A week-by-week commentary on Rock the Block Season 7
Finishing Up
We’ve reached the end of Rock the Block, with the teams finishing up the final untouched spaces: the front lawns, courtyards, and exteriors. This week, I’m not giving you the play-by-play (or perhaps I should say team-by-team) description of these areas, but I will talk about what I think each team did will overall.
Taniya and Drew were the team whose design best embodied their design concept (“Livable Luxe”). Their spaces felt glamorous; the consistent use of gold and brass in high contrast to black, and the choices of luxurious materials like marble and suede; these were the touches that made their spaces feel high-end, and yet, alongside this, these were sensible spaces, not gaudy, but spaces you really could live in.
Mina and Vernon were consistent in prioritizing value and classic appeal. They were always tasteful, considered, and calm. At times it made their design a little less memorable, but there was nothing offensive in any of their spaces. Elevating the practical wherever they could, the only incidence of them being told their space didn’t work was when they opted for a single daybed in their ADU.
Scott and Brooke’s strength was whimsy. They embraced colour and pattern, and were almost the polar opposite of Mina and Vernon in this regard, but in every space of theirs you entered, you felt the sense of fun; bunk beds in the office, a pergola just for watching TV and grabbing a beer, a whole sign made out of pickleballs, a sauna in the bathroom…fun and play was everywhere.
Kim and Chelsea’s home had a sophistication to it that I think many of the other’s lacked. They took risks in making design choices that were not showy or performative but really in pursuit of creating something striking and beautiful. They were bold in stone choices, colour choices, and layout choices, and the reactions of their teammates during the team tours proved this was true.
The big disconnect
While I really enjoyed this season of Rock the Block, at the end of things I felt something was missing.
If you’ve followed this newsletter or the podcast for any amount of time, then you know I prioritize function, lifestyle, and problem solving. What I’m about to say doesn’t negate this, but might seem counterintuitive.
Good design can’t just be about the practical.
Something I touched on last week but really felt throughout the series was that so much of the design felt rooted in ensuring to have “things” to impress. This makes sense in the context of the show—the goal is to impress the appraisers after all, but in real life, it results in builder grade design. It’s what’s wrong with so much of residential design in the US.
And, this is why you cannot design your home based on what’s going to appeal to some hypothetical future buyer, and why instead you need something even less tangible, yet more impactful: feeling.
Feel matters.
How you want to feel in a space should inform your design. The kind of memories you hope to inspire in a space should inform your design. I know it might sound a little “woo-woo”, but we are feeling creatures.
It’s why low-lighting feels romantic and intimate, and why we instinctively put our feet up when we feel relaxed, versus sitting with straight backs when we don’t.
Here’s my unsolicited advice to you: As you consider the spaces in your home you want to work on, capture the feelings you’d like the spaces to have, not just how you’ll live in them, or the stories they will tell, but the way you’d like to feel when you’re in them. It goes a long way.
Signing off for this week! If you’re looking for more, check out the blog, the podcast, or find us on Instagram and Pinterest.