Here at Kia Designs we like to carbon offset our yearly contributions and invest in environmental projects in the UK. We try to keep as paperless an office as possible, and keep our printing output low.
Interior Design isn’t the cleanest industry, we use lots of cotton (particularly in carpets and curtains) which is one of the most damaging crops on the planet. Fire regulations mean we coat a lot of products is some serious chemicals. We fly all over the world to attend trade shows. Then there’s the footprint for shipping furniture around the world, which is always very convoluted. A cane chair might be constructed in a village in Vietnam. Then coated with a varnish that has been made in China, shipped to the US and then sent back to factories in Asia. The chair might then be sent on to a wholesaler in China, bought by an American firm and shipped to their warehouse in Texas where it will be bought by a retailer, who truck it to their company. From there they send it to one of their international stores, say London, where we purchase it and send it to Dubai for a client. It’s more well travelled than your average yuppie.
merging trends are more geometric shapes, lots of hand-painted effect tiles and imprinted porcelain. Whilst we never really go in for “trends”, as nothing dates a property faster, we do like keeping up with the latest in manufacturing techniques. As the trend for strong geometric styling continues, advances in technology means the interlocking mechanisms have become simpler, and the tile panels larger, meaning they will be far more affordable to ship and install. Just as we saw with parquet flooring and engineered wood, chevron tiles in pre-made blocks are also becoming very popular. It’s an easy way to achieve a luxury finish, either as a wood effect throughout the house or a more visually arresting way to arrange marble in a bathroom.
