contract magazine + KI furniture: “On our radar”

May 18, 2019

Presented by Contract and KI Furniture

In partnership with KI Furniture, Contract magazine presents On Our Radar—a six-part blog series, posted every Thursday, featuring some of our favorite creative individuals in the interior design community, what inspires them at work and at home, how they got their start in the industry, projects that have both challenged them and formed their practices, and much more. This week, we meet Jane Hallinan. Hallinan is an interior designer at Perkins Eastman.

This Pittsburgh-based interior designer talks about her creative process, where she draws inspiration, and what led her to pursue work in the senior living practice of Perkins Eastman, Pittsburgh.

Getting To Know You  

Tell us about yourself?

I’m an interior designer interested in sustainability, social equity, and sourdough bread.

What was your first design job?

I started my career at Ruprecht Schroeder Hoffman (RSH) Architects here in Pittsburgh, where I was the only female interior designer and I worked alongside five male architects.

How did you wind up at Perkins Eastman? What attracted you to Perkins Eastman?

I worked at one other firm after RSH Architects before I came to Perkins Eastman. Again, I was the only interior designer on staff.

Perkins Eastman caught my eye because our Pittsburgh office has one of the highest numbers (nine!) of interior designers on staff compared to other firms in our area. Plus, one of our office’s Principals is a woman and an interior designer! I was really eager to be part of a bigger team driven by this female leadership.

How would you describe your workplace?

Physically, we’re located on the edge of downtown Pittsburgh within a historic Beaux Arts building that was constructed in 1900 as the Pittsburgh Union Station train station. Every day, we walk under a beautiful dome-shaped rotunda to come into the office and are greeted by the beautiful architecture!

Inside and at our desks, we have a group of professionals who have a unique collection of expertise. All of these diverse skills in communication, visualization, and detailing combine to make us better and better at what we do every day, the practice of architecture and design with a human touch.

Your Creative Process

 How do you find your creativity?

I flip through a lot of magazines! Both at home and at work, I have dozens of magazines laying around ready to have their pages dog-eared or ripped out. I also look for opportunities to attend our local TEDx events, CreativeMornings (where I met my partner!), and IIDA events to spark creativity. And when all else fails, I try to surround myself with creative people.

What happens when you have a great idea and it doesn’t make it into a project?

I put it into a special gray, felt-covered notebook that I carry around sometimes and save it for another day. Sometimes I sketch floor pattern ideas and furniture layouts or cut out some paint swatch combinations. Then the waiting game begins until just the right moment to try it out!

You work in Pittsburgh. How do you find Pittsburgh as a source of inspiration?

Pittsburgh is such a down-to-earth, blue-collar, hardworking city. I’m inspired everyday by individuals who create their own opportunities and bring their businesses, initiatives, events, and ideas to life!

The Steel City is really beautiful and has so many diverse landscapes. We have bridges and tunnels that create unique layers to view the city from. People might not be as enamored with these while they’re stuck in rush hour traffic, but it was this role that water plays in the daily lives of Pittsburgh residents and the city’s confluence of rivers that inspired my recent luxury vinyl tile collaboration with Tarkett: a pattern called Outliners.

How would you describe your personal style? How does it inform and influence your work?

My personal style is high-waisted jeans and red lipstick, ha! But my design style is simple, intentional, and a purposeful balance of color, textures, and patterns. While at my first design job, I had to do more with less. I learned that fewer materials like paint, carpet, and rubber base go the extra mile.

What led you to work within the corporate interiors and senior living practices of Perkins Eastman? Often these sectors aren’t necessarily thought to push the limits of creativity very far. Do you think you have challenged this throughout your career, and if so, how?

The Pittsburgh office of Perkins Eastman was actually the first satellite office of our headquarters in New York. This year is our 25th anniversary here! Our office has been deeply rooted in the senior living practice from the beginning and has diversified with the additions of higher education and corporate interiors.

When I joined Perkins Eastman in 2016, I started with our senior living studio which I found to be an incredible challenge because senior living design is actually evolving so much! Every project was a different balance of residential feel with commercial building codes and durable materials, but also a mix of hospitality and healthcare depending on the client, location, and level of care.

While at RSH Architects, we had a firm specialty of religious facilities for a variety of faith traditions. So, I’ve become used to designing for these unexpected markets.

But over the last few years, I realized that the healthcare side of senior living just wasn’t my thing. Senior living is such an honorable market to work in though because aging with dignity is so incredibly important.

Since then, I’ve really found my niche in corporate interiors. People spend so much time in their workplace. It’s so intriguing to me that individuals come into their office every day with such different backgrounds, beliefs, and experiences, and the interior environment can contribute to their ability to be more creative, more productive, get along with one another, and get the job done.

According to Jonathan Webb, VP Sales & Marketing – Business Market, Workplace Strategy at KI, a well-designed workplace enhances productivity, increases communication, and creates an inherent sense of community and movement throughout the day, and that design must be done authentically, thinking holistically rather than accommodating specific silos within the organization”. What challenges do you see in designing a workplace today? 

I absolutely agree! To support these workplaces, our team really strives to find the right balance of collaboration zones, heads down areas, and various sizes of meeting rooms. And in these spaces, the furniture is crucial! Early in the programming and schematic design phase, we are often partnering with our Workplace Strategy team, conducting interviews and field observations and ultimately creating a unique report that will play a role in translating each client’s work and meeting culture with the built environment.

During this phase, we also will have some fun, interactive workshops with an organization’s change Champions to really dig deep into what we emphasize as “the Power of Place “. This helps us to learn their interpretation of what working for that organization means and could look like to them.

 When it comes to senior living, how are these spaces being redesigned for the better these days?

My colleagues have done such incredible research on the changing state of senior living. From an aesthetic perspective, as most markets are experiencing, there is a significant shift toward a more hospitality-like feel.

One aspect of senior living that is changing that I’m really excited about is that some communities are choosing to build smaller housing models that fit within the existing urban context and can take advantage of existing infrastructure and programs like art classes, restaurants, and hair salons. This is allowing seniors to stay closer to the neighborhoods where they have spent a significant portion of their lives and the things and people that they love instead of “banishing” them away to the edges of town.

What are some examples of the projects you’re most proud of and why?

One project that I’ve been really proud of from early on in my career is one that I did at RSH Architects for the University of Pittsburgh’s student service center called Panther Central. This 24/7 center processes a wide variety of student services from housing, to dining, to transportation. Students used to walk into the space and need to discuss sometimes private and sensitive topics while standing at this very open public transaction counter. Our team designed smaller one-on-one customer service stations that allowed staff to provide a more hospitality feel to their service and allowed students to access services confidently with more visual and acoustic privacy.

Flexibility is the buzzword these days. How do you approach designing multi-use spaces?

Our team thinks of flexibility as supporting different work postures. We believe that differing breakout spaces should provide users with a variety of choices to change their position and point of view, but also fully support them and the tools/accessories they need to work. This includes everything from where to plug-in, where to set your cup of coffee, and the various ergonomics that go along with it.

How do you keep a pulse of where design is headed?

I look toward other industries like tech, fashion, branding, and graphic design. Plus, I like to follow what is going on in politics throughout the world. Everything is very interconnected!

You mentioned that you follow politics to keep a pulse on where design is headed. How do you see design being tied into the world’s political landscape?

Politics and current events influence our work every single day! Now, we are designing spaces for markets that didn’t even exist a number of years ago, like autonomous vehicles and cannabis facilities. Another example is that workplaces are beginning to embrace a non-binary future more and more from a human resources and an interior environment perspective. Finally, products that we specify and work with on a daily basis as designers, like furniture and even quartz materials, are directly affected by volatility in global trade and tariffs.

How do you find new clients?

Talk about the Pittsburgh Penguins, Steelers, and/or Pirates (typically in that order.) Talk about western Pennsylvania weather. And ask people about their pets. Just kidding! Kind of.

My dad is the kind of guy who goes to an event and can talk to every single person in the room. I’m really lucky that I’ve inherited that trait from him. So, I find a lot of joy in finding any reason or opportunity to talk to someone and get to know them. And maybe, just maybe, it can become a job opportunity.

How do you keep evolving as a designer?

I spend more and more time outside of office hours doing and reading about non-designer things like politics, environmentalism, bread baking, business, watching music documentaries, and making things with my hands.

How do you feel that doing non-designer things outside the office helps you evolve as a designer?

I feel that the term “cross-disciplinary” from a traditional architecture firm approach relates to having a team that maybe includes an architect, a designer, an engineer, or a graphic designer under one roof. However, a more transdisciplinary approach recognizes and appreciates a wider variety of skills than any one individual brings to the table, making the team that much more diverse, and draws inspiration from those skills that don’t just have to be related to the textbook definition of your role in the office.

Interior Designer / Master Gardener / Beekeeper sure does sound interesting though, don’t you think?!

Could you tell me the story behind your “Not A Decorator” enamel pins? What does this quote mean to you?

The phrase “Not A Decorator” comes from the late Florence Knoll in an article featured in the New York Times in 1964. The quote reads “I am not a decorator,” she said emphatically. “The only place I decorate is my own house.” This quote really turned into an anthem for interior designers who regularly get mislabeled as decorators by people who don’t really understand our profession.

And as a profession and community, we don’t have a uniform or one specific item that reflects our industry. One day, I thought it would be fun to finally have an accessory that I could wear to showcase my pride and passion as an interior designer but I don’t particularly like graphic T-shirts, unless they have the Pittsburgh Penguins logo on it. So, I thought that an enamel pin was extremely versatile and had less words than the random T-shirts that read “Interior Designer… because Badass Miracle Worker is not an official job title.”

You’re an advocate for interior design legislation. What led you to be passionate about this?

I think that everyone, regardless of their profession, should be acutely aware of the challenges and obstacles that their industry faces that could legally impact your practice.

Our education, examination, and experience as interior designers play an extremely valuable role within the built environment and our community should defend our legal recognition as key players.

Advocacy is important for you. What needs to change? What do we need to do better?

More seats at the table, less ego. The interior design profession and the traditional practice of architecture and design are changing.

At home, you’re a foodie and you also love midcentury design. Can you talk about this?

My partner, Chris, and I really love the inherent functionality of midcentury furniture. The pieces are meant to be loved and used. They aren’t too extravagant, which speaks to my “Plain Jane-ness” too. Last year, we were really fortunate to have found the perfect home just outside of the city that blends our love for midcentury design with our need to fit my increasingly large collection of house plants.

From the beginning of our relationship, Chris has been an amazing cook! We love good vegan comfort food and he makes some of the best. The dinner table is just a really great place to be with people that you love to share a delicious meal. We have friends over for dinner as often as our schedule allows!

 Your Favorite Things

New shop/brand: Everlane! They aren’t new but their commitment to sustainability, ethical factories, and radical transparency is something that I think the interiors industry could learn a lot from.

Iconic Piece of Furniture: You just can’t go wrong with an Eames Lounge Chair!

Recent Book: Honey Bee Biology and Beekeeping (I just built my first two beehives and received my first colonies of bees!) and the Penn State Extension Master Gardener Manual (I’m taking an evening Master Gardener program through Phipps Conservatory that started this spring!).

Building or Interior you didn’t design but like: The Refettorio opened by Massimo Bottura called Food for Soul. “Through art, design, and beauty, we transform neglected spaces into inclusive social hubs where our guests can feel welcome and valued.” They are beautiful dining halls that provide those in need with a three-course meal like in high-quality restaurants. They incorporate ingredients that divert perfectly edible foods from going to waste. Their belief is that “a meal is a gesture of inclusion.” Every single part of this is my absolute life dream to do.

Words of advice or words you live by?

“The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough.” – by Randy Pausch

Musicians: Kathleen Hannah of Bikini Kill

Photographer: Maranie Rae, who photographs/documents human rights and social justice issues around the world. Her work is so beautiful, and so powerful. It really showcases the stories of those most deeply affected, and those most innocent, by the wars that they cannot escape.

Artists: Graphic Design + Tattoo Studio, True Hand Society in Philadelphia and Anastasia & Martin Lesjak of Innocad/13&9 Design in Austria.

Makers: Makers of the most delicious food in Pittsburgh, Apteka, and beautiful leather goods from This Is Ground in Los Angeles.

Entrepreneurs: Ashley Ruprecht of Lauren & Ash Farm + Faeth Millinery in Hudson Valley, New York, and Lindsey Smith of The Wild Rose Collective in Pittsburgh.

Where do you go to feel most creative: While traveling! This photo is taken from our recent trip to Pacentro, Italy. This was such an exciting trip for us to go on! My boyfriend’s mother is a first generation Italian immigrant who came to the United States when she was 13. Pacentro is a small medieval, mountain village where she grew up. So we rented a car in Rome and drove the 2 hours, up winding roads lined with olive trees that are all picked by hand and were just blown away by the beauty of the old architecture, the vistas, and the fresh biscotti!

This six-part series is presented by Contract and KI Furniture. KI believes great design is about building a sense of community—creating spaces where people can gather, collaborate, celebrate individuality and find a place to belong. Designing environments as places to connect is the heart of KI’s philosophy of “Together by Design.”

In the ongoing series—On Our Radar—about our creative community, next week we interview Margaret Sullivan of Margaret Sullivan Studio.

// ADDITIONAL

Contract Magazine - On Our Radar: Jane Hallinan