Anna Campbell-Jones

Caitlin Morrissey

In our work, The DNA of Cities is our starting point for exploring the authentic or the unique identities of cities and the character of cities and how different traits of cities have been acquired and how they are experienced. What might The DNA of Cities mean to you?

Anna Campbell-Jones

I suppose as an interior designer, I’m designing spaces for people who frequently live in cities. And I’ve always felt that context is very important to design. Much more important than following a trend or anything kind of market related, particularly. So whether the project is in a city or in a more rural location, the context is very important. I think it’s just another very important ingredient to consider when you’re looking at a whole design scheme.

Caitlin Morrissey

So you began to talk a little bit about how your work is shaped by context in cities. But could you tell us a little bit more about how different cities shape or influence the way that you design and how important is a sense of place in your design work?

Anna Campbell-Jones

So I suppose the main cities that I have designed in have been Edinburgh, Glasgow and London. Three cities with very different personalities, very different cultural context as well. So, it’s not just necessarily what the cities look like, it’s how people live in them. Also, the architecture types and traditions do play a huge part when you’re thinking about how to design spaces in those cities.

I absolutely think that cities influence the way we design spaces that sit within them as a kind of sometimes as a microcosm. In fact, I’m working on a project at the moment for a charity where we will be creating spaces for that charity in cities across Scotland. And in each space, we’re going to be placing Easter eggs that give people using those spaces a connection, sense of belonging. It’s very important to people’s sense of wellbeing, I think, to feel that sense of belonging, to understand where they are. I’m quite against the idea of generic corporate interiors or, as I mentioned before, interiors that are dictated by trends.

Caitlin Morrissey

And when you are designing for a sense of belonging, what sort of design features might that include?

Anna Campbell-Jones

Well, I’m very concerned about the impact on the environment of creating new interiors. So I frequently use reclaimed and repurposed materials and objects. So a key part of that is sourcing those materials and objects from close to the location where the project is being carried out, which means you almost instantly get that sense of connection.

So for example, using a reclaimed gym floor from a local school in a space, there will always be that connection to that school, to the history of the area. Just as an example. Or using furniture that’s sourced from local antiques dealers that’s maybe been in a home nearby for a very long period of time. That sense of narrative and connection, I think, is really important.

Caitlin Morrissey

Thank you so much, Anna, that’s so fascinating to hear. And we’re coming on to the third question now which is about your starting points for thinking through the individuality of cities or the uniqueness of different places within cities. So I think you’ve spoken about a little bit of this so far but perhaps when you’re designing in a new context or in a new urban environment what it is that you look to, to bring inside as it were? What are your starting points for thinking through those differences?

Anna Campbell-Jones

Oh, that’s quite a complicated question. It’s interesting because I used to lecture in interior design. And one of the things that we used to encourage the students to do was to explain their thought processes and to explain how they came to their ideas. And then I did realise that my processes aren’t necessarily so easy to define.

I think when you’re designing in any new space or a space or a place that’s new to you, it’s important to understand it at quite a granular level. And for me, that might just be just walking the streets or talking to people, visiting places that those people that live there use to get a sense of how that area or that city is inhabited. And a starting point can be anything really from an object that that homeowner or space user loves and cherishes that speaks to them and their sense of place. Or it might be some activity that goes on in an area that is close to that space that we can talk to.

I was involved in the early ‘90s in the redesign of the Glasgow subway trains known here as the Clockwork Orange. And that has been coming into play quite a lot recently because it really captured people’s imagination. When I spoke about it online in my socials, when those trains were recently retired, the interior of those trains became iconic and everyone felt a very strong sense of connection to particularly the moquette design which combined kind of oranges and reds. People felt that that is almost like a textile for the city. And I have found somebody that still sells that fabric. And I’ve been having a lot of inquiries and requests for that to be included in projects because people want to hold on to that memory of all those train journeys. They want to bring a little bit of that back home. I’ve also created a range of interior products that connect to that interior so that people can keep a little bit of it close, even though the train is now in the Riverside Museum as opposed to on the tracks.

Caitlin Morrissey

That’s a concept we haven’t come across before and it’s so fascinating talking to you as an interior designer which is the textile of the city because we talk about stories, songs, places, artefacts, but we haven’t yet heard about the textile of the city. And as Londoners, Greg and I, we can certainly relate to those different designs in the London Underground as being completely part of the daily fabric of your commute if you’re using the tube a lot or the train. So thank you for saying that, it’s something I hadn’t really thought of before.

You’ve mentioned Glasgow and London. Can you tell us, are these the cities that are really meaningful to your work? Are there any other places that you would like to highlight as being inspirational in your career or in your life or in the sort of pathways that have shaped you as a designer?

Anna Campbell-Jones 

Yes, I suppose London and Glasgow have both been home cities for me. I’m originally from London, but I’ve lived in Glasgow on and off since the late ‘80s. So those are the ones that are closest to my heart, I suppose. I have designed quite a few interiors in Edinburgh and I always enjoy the very strong cultural difference between the East and West of Scotland, between these two cities. The sort of more gentrified approach to interiors and to life in Edinburgh definitely is reflected in the way that I design in that city.

There’s two other cities that I have quite a strong connection with that I used to visit regularly as an academic. One is New York and the other is Singapore, and really those two cities couldn’t be any more different. The sort of noise and the chaos and the mess and the kind of anarchy of New York compared to the pristine orderliness and immaculateness of Singapore. I’m always fascinated by how the culture of the people who live in those cities affects the way those cities feel and the way that they look. Whilst I couldn’t say that necessarily any specific interiors that I’ve seen in either of those cities has influenced the way that I design, I always talk about design influences as coming from absolutely anywhere. So the more you can drink in, the more that it feeds your sort of catalogue, I suppose, of ideas that you have in your head.

So one of the things that I particularly enjoy is the very strong connection between New York and Glasgow. Kind of the personality of the people, the kind of rambunctiousness, but also in the architecture, those tenements on the Lower East Side that were designed by the same architects that designed the tenements in Glasgow, just create for me a really strong feeling of home when I’m in that city.  And it’s certainly a city that I walk a lot the way that I walk this one. And the grid layout of the streets as well. And we all know that Glasgow has been used as a proxy for New York in numerous, numerous movies. So I very much enjoy that connection. And I think that New Yorkers all think they’re Scottish too. So maybe what goes around comes around.

Greg Clark

Anna, it’s lovely to see you and thank you so much for talking about four cities that we also care about and have already featured in The DNA of Cities. So London, Singapore, New York and Glasgow are amongst our favourite cities too. I’ve got about five or six questions and I’m just going to ask them one at a time. But I think the first one is a little bit philosophical, which is just to say, not only are you a star performer as an interior designer and helping the people of Britain to really understand how interior design makes a difference to humankind. But you’ve also thought about this over the long periods. And I suppose my question is, what have you observed from looking at interior design through the ages about how human beings have evolved as design has evolved? And vice versa, how design has evolved to meet the changing tastes of humans? Just for our audience who may be new to all of this, what’s that relationship between interior design and human evolution?

Anna Campbell-Jones

Well, that is an absolutely massive question, Greg, and many fascinating tomes have been written on the subject. And it’s something that I ponder a lot. I mean, there’s a lot of in the press at the moment about the return of wall-to-wall carpets. So I think that there is an element of a cycle, I suppose, in the way that interiors are created, certainly for living.

Perhaps commercial spaces move forwards in a more linear fashion because of the changing nature of the way that we work and shop, et cetera. The human animal is basically the same thing that we need that sense of belonging, a sense of community. We need to create spaces that we can spend time with our families and friends, spaces that we can feel safe and retreat from the stresses of work and daily life. And there are changes that happen about what that looks like and how that’s organised. And there’s very many different kinds of pressures on that, the way that we are entertained at home, whether it’s how we consume visual content, the way that we cook, the way that we eat. And I think that people are feeling more comfortable with the idea of doing that in their own ways. That homes are becoming less similar to each other and that people are getting more comfortable with the idea of expressing their own ways of living in their homes. And I think that can only be a good thing.

Greg Clark

Anna, thank you so much. And then I want to ask you a second related question, which is again a little bit philosophical about the role of the interior designer. Because in the past perhaps people thought of interior designers as people who were picking colours and fabrics, but they didn’t necessarily know that behind that there was the curation of a whole emotional and spiritual and community life. So when people ask you what does an interior designer really do, what do you say?

Anna Campbell-Jones

I think that what I say may not be the same as what many other interior designers say. I think probably interior designers are as individual as any other kind of human being. But certainly, my approach is always to look at it as a collaborative project that my first task is to get to know the people that are going to be using this space and what they need from it, from a practical point of view, but also from an emotional point of view. Whether it is designing a home for a blended family, whether it’s designing a home for people with very particular needs. And now, of course, homes are also work spaces, so creating those kinds of separations. Yes, the idea of fabrics and colours being core to what an interior designer does is interesting because obviously that’s very important. I would say that that comes out of the process of understanding how a space is going to be used and what that space needs to communicate, I think that the days of the interior designer swooping in and telling people what to do.

Greg Clark

So Anna, our human population is growing very rapidly. And the consequence is that we’re going to have many more cities, many more people living in cities, people living in more compact and more dense ways.

How is interior design going to support and assist this move towards a more highly populated planet with people living in much smaller spaces over time? What can we expect?

Anna Campbell-Jones

I think that’s quite a challenging question because there have been so many ideas around more compact living that have been developing over the last few decades, I suppose, and humans aren’t getting any smaller. And we all still need to do the same things. We need to lie down. We need to set up. We need to eat. And all of those things take the same amount of space. I suppose just continuing to work with the idea of creating spaces that are flexible, that are multifunctional, that can be transformed to suit different activities. And it may be that there are exciting ways that technology can be used to augment that so that you don’t end up feeling like you’re living in a kind of flat-pack studio flat or something like that.

I think it’s a real challenge. I don’t know that the solution to that lies completely with interior design. I think interior design can certainly help. Obviously, creating spaces that are multifunctional means that you can fit more people into less space. But we do need to try and think of a way of doing that that doesn’t compromise humanity. That sort of sense of having space to do all the things that we need to do at home.

Greg Clark

Thank you very much. I’m going to go for my last question which may sound a little bit obvious because you’ve already commented on it and it’s something I’ve heard you speak about before. But why is it that we are trying more now to integrate nature into interior design? And how does that relate to your understanding of human health? What is the relationship between design and nature and health?

Anna Campbell-Jones

The relationship between interior design, nature and health. Well, there’s two different kinds of health that I would talk about there. One is mental health, that as I mentioned earlier in our conversation, we are still human animals and we still crave a connection to nature and the countryside. And that is something that certainly for people living in cities is more and more difficult to access. And I think that including elements of the natural world in our homes helps us to maintain that connection to feel that sense of comfort, I suppose. And then from a physical health point of view, more and more research is being done about the amount of chemicals in our homes and the dangers to our health of synthetic products and materials. Not only our personal health, but then the health of the planet. So certainly with the products that I specify and the products that I design for my product range, my brand, I am absolutely focused on using only natural materials and being thoughtful about where those come from. And again, as I’ve mentioned to you when speaking before, Greg, about that concern for the health of the planet, that it’s very easy to panic and feel frozen and feel that there’s really nothing that we can do at that kind of small-scale level in our homes. And I would always say that every little helps. And if you are able to make choices that are responsible for the planet’s health, then that actually helps you to feel better, to feel more comforted about what is quite a worrying time.

Greg Clark

Thank you so much. Anna, we’re used to listening to architects talking about the vernacular in any city. The aspects of the architecture, the built environment, the infrastructure that sort of speak what that city is to the visitor or to the person who’s out and about in the public places and spaces. But there’s also, of course, a vernacular inside the city, in the interior design of the buildings, the homes and other things. What part do you think that internal or interior vernacular plays in how the people of a city see themselves and their sense of connection or belonging to the city? How does that relationship work?

Anna Campbell-Jones

That’s a lovely, juicy question. I think it would be really interesting, wouldn’t it, to look at images of interiors of people’s homes in different cities and try and guess which city those spaces are in. And certainly, there are particular objects and motifs that I imagine would arise whichever city you were looking at. I mean, thinking about Glasgow in particular, so many people here live in tenements and tenement interiors are very particular. The arrangement of rooms, the cornice work, the doors, the large hallways that people use for multiple purposes. I mean, my hallway, for example, has been a tennis court, a football pitch, a dining room, an exercise space, a party space. I think that’s the case for lots of people who live in tenements.

And yeah, there are objects that people think of as part of the history of their city. I’m thinking one particularly pops into mind. I think a lot of people will have strong memories of what’s known here as Wally dogs, ceramic Staffordshire dog figurines. That used to be a feature of many mantelpieces across Scotland, I would say, but particularly in Glasgow. And they have had a bit of resurgence. And I think that is to do with a nostalgia for what this city in particular used to be like in its Victorian heyday.

Greg Clark

Brilliant. I’d love to see these Wally dogs. I haven’t seen them before. If you ever decide to do a comparative, you know, internal vernacular and see if people can guess which city it is, we’d love to be part of that because I think there’s something really juicy there. I don’t have any further questions, Anna. But I just want to check firstly, whether there’s anything else you want to say. So, Anna, did we ask you the right questions, do you think? Was there anything else you would have said if we’d asked you a better question?

Anna Campbell-Jones

No, I think they’re really, really interesting questions. Yes, the questions that almost prompt more questions. I’m certainly, I think that idea that we’ve just had live in this conversation about comparing interiors or trying to guess the interiors is really, a really fun one.

And I suppose the only other thing that I was thinking about in advance of this fascinating conversation was the way that people lived in city centres. That, certainly in Glasgow, the council here is really trying to encourage migration to city centre living. That the trend that happened some decades ago for people moving to suburbs to have more space, to have their own roof, their own driveway, that that has slightly hollowed out that sense of home being the city centre, that the city centre is where things happen, but it’s not where people live and that they’ve recognised that that shift has gone too far and office buildings are now being re-looked at to be used as residential space. And I believe that’s happening in many cities across the world, and I think that’s only a good thing. I would love to live in a city centre. I would love to feel the hubbub and the noise and the life of a city. But once all the restaurants and bars are shut in Glasgow in particular, it’s dead. There’s not really people living there. There’s not people playing with their children or walking their dogs. And I think that’s a sad thing.

Greg Clark

That’s a brilliant point, Anna, and I’m going to ask you a quick follow up if I may. Anna, you’ve made the point that in Glasgow, there’s a real effort now to encourage what we would call the repopulation of the city centre to get more people living, as it were, downtown. And this is a strong trend across the whole world as city leaders realise that by having a strong residential population, lots of amenities within the downtown are supported by that. And in the post-COVID world with more people working flexibly, this is a very important way of achieving vibrancy and dynamism in the city centre. But I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to think about this much yet, but what is required to really convert office buildings and other kinds of buildings, maybe even retail buildings, to make them places where people can live well and live comfortably? Is it always feasible? And what are some of the ingredients to make those homes really welcoming?

Anna Campbell-Jones

I think, well, that’s exactly where a good interior designer comes into play. Because you mentioned earlier that people perceive an interior designer as being about textiles and colours and so on. And actually, it’s really about looking very deeply at how people behave and how they want to live and also about how buildings can be modified.

I always say the biggest difference between an architect and an interior designer is that an architect generally will be looking at creating a new building and an interior designer will be looking at the repurposing of a building. And obviously, the idea of repurposing buildings is incredibly important. In the UK, there’s VAT applicable to repurposing existing buildings, whereas new buildings are VAT exempt, and that’s something that I think really has to change to encourage this repurposing.

I think that exciting spaces come from complexity. That if you are converting a building that used to be a warehouse or an office into residential space, you’ve got some tension, you’ve got some problems that you need to overcome. And actually that adds a welcome amount of complexity to that interior that gives it character, that gives it a sense of place and a sense of being unique to the person that lives there, the people that choose to live in that building. I know that in particular in Glasgow City Centre, one of the biggest problems about effectively reintroducing urban living, which is essential, is waste collection. That that has been a big stumbling block. That sometimes it’s a surprising thing that’s a problem. It’s not necessarily whether the building can be devised up nicely into flats because, you know, I think that probably most can, or at least many can, but sometimes it’s quite a prosaic problem that can cause a bump in the road and that more general holistic thinking and communication across all departments in councils and between designers, architects and of course the people that are going to live there, it’s really important to iron out these wrinkles and make it happen.

Greg Clark

Brilliant, Anna. Thank you so much.