The Interior Design Reference & Specification Book

Job:02-30056 Title: RP-Interior Design Reference and Specification

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CALVIN TSAO

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THE INTERIOR DESIGN REFERENCE + SPECIFICATION BOOK

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Calvin Tsao, describe yourself and your practice.

As architects, we have an interest in bridging different design disciplines. We have

a profound interest in approaching our work comprehensively, “total design” if you

will; our work as interior designers should be understood in this context. We are

interested in mapping out human behavior for different social conditions. We look at

the world from a larger perspective while advancing an aesthetic; you simply cannot

do one without the other.

Do you have a particular approach to placing furniture in a space?

Ultimately, we look at furniture anthropomorphically and therefore functionally be-

cause furniture is conducive to varying activities. However, I like looking at interior

environments less as a collection of things in a room than as an intersection. Why

draw the line between built-in furniture, loose furniture, and architecture? Some

furniture is already placed because it is built-in and loose furniture is simply an ex-

tension of the whole reality. The envelope creates the space, and the surface can

be altered to make niches, cantilevers, extensions, etc.; sometimes the surface

becomes a table or a four-poster bed. I prefer to blur the boundaries of architecture,

built-in furniture, and loose furniture.

What is your favorite type of space to design/furnish?

I love small, tiny spaces. As a child, I liked to make tents out of my sheets in bed

and under the stairs. It’s a very basic impulse and the next line of defense beyond

clothing.

Small spaces lack the bravura of large spaces, and therefore spaciousness isn’t

the primary character. Modest space must be carefully orchestrated and tactility is

an essential quality. Because the distance between the eye and an object is differ-

ent in smaller spaces, you look closer, you touch more. I like the involvement of the

senses when surfaces are closer.

Does your work have a particular style that you can define?

Style? An approach more than a style, really. It depends how you want to define the

word style. One can have a developed taste, but style can be limiting.

Who are the most influential furniture designers of the nineteenth, twentieth, and

twenty-first centuries?

Job:02-30056 Title: RP-Interior Design Reference and Specification

#175 Dtp:216 Page:260

(RAY)

256-265_30056.indd 260 3/4/13 7:55 PM