Learn how to create a space that supports a calm, peaceful mental state, according to an interior designer.
Take a look around you. Whether you’re sitting at your dining table or sweating at your local Equinox Club, you’re surrounded by design. According to Lisa Staprans, founder of Staprans Design and author of The Soul of Design, these aesthetics affect how you think, act, and interact in this space.
Staprans’ love affair with design began when she traveled across Europe in college. An art history major at UC Berkeley, she walked through thousands of years of architecture with a keen eye for beauty. She began to wonder how the aesthetics of the space changed the experience of the humans who entered it. “This was back in the day when you could lie down in the middle of the Sistine Chapel and look at the ceiling, and no one would kick you out. I had the room to myself and I could look up and think,” she says.
Mostly, she noticed how calm and serene these spaces made her feel — and wondered how she could replicate that sentiment back in the U.S. “Having come from my family history, I wasn't exactly a very calm 17-year-old, and it really just made me feel like there was a whole different way of being in the world,” Staprans says.
After graduating, she moved to New York City and worked for Knoll, a design showroom. She intended to study architecture but found she had a talent for interiors. “My first project was a 60,000-square-foot house in upstate New York,” says Staprans. “I was 23 or 24. These things happened to me because I’m really good with artists. I've always been really good at listening, absorbing, and giving back. I can understand what a space needs and how the people in that space will be integral to the design.”
