Why Interior Designer Louisa Grey Could Stay Home Forever

Rip & Tan: You’ve coined the phrase “Circular Salutogenic Design®”. Can you walk us through what this means to you and how it manifests?

Louisa Grey: Circular Salutogenic Design® (CSD) is about creating interior spaces and environments that allow humans to live in harmony with the plane and themselves. Home of Holism is the perfect example of this, it is my own personal home but it is also our design studio’s office. It was a passion project from start to finish and it is a space that truly embodies all of our design principles without any limitations: how sensory discovery can change how we feel, purposeful design that doesn’t overstimulate us and embracing nature and all of its materials.

At House of Grey, we holistically fuse the features and principles of Salutogenic Design with the aims of Circular Design, to create unique, personal environments that actively promote human health and have a positive impact on the planet.

As a design studio we’re constantly evolving from within and looking to the future in all areas of our work: exploring new research, innovating products, developing partnerships, investing in our internal training, honing our design processes and applying our Circular Salutogenic principles across everything we do. Our CSD work embraces the notion of regenerative design and development, which is the process of building capability in people within communities, and capacity within natural systems to renew, evolve, and thrive. Regenerative design is holistic. We create ways for humans to enhance and contribute to thriving, living systems across the globe.

Rip & Tan: Your home also operates as a studio space. How did you achieve balance, functionally and stylistically, between the two?

Louisa Grey: The Home of Holism is a multi-faceted environment: it is our design studio, a showroom for the materials and products we advocate, but it is also my home.

After the pandemic, creating a holistic work/home space has become ever more important and living holistically means considering not only how items look and feel but also how they perform to keep that space functioning to its optimum. Buildings often have hidden features and sometimes the most crucial aspects of a well-functioning space are not on display. Making key elements of a room changeable and movable, so nothing is fixed was fundamental. We also ensured that everything we needed to use daily was easily accessible and practical. For example, we created a movable kitchen island that can be easily rolled into different positions and on which we have used a surface mineral which is the same we used in the bathroom, making it durable and resistant to wet weather.

Furthermore, our studio’s main office space is ‘hidden’ behind folding glass panel doors, allowing the space to be flexible and to work for how we are feeling each day. To limit crossover, I consciously designed my bedroom to be a retreat space to reset and self-regulate, with an en suite bathroom that has views across the trees to the city and I used the lime wash color ‘Retreat’ from the House of Grey, Visual Silence collaboration with Bauwerk colour.

Rip & Tan: In what ways does a neutral palette create opportunity for improved living?

Louisa Grey: When designing spaces we offer optimum health, whilst diving deep with our clients into considering how the space should function from day to day depending on their specific requirements. We always specify chemical-free products and we carefully create environments that don’t overstimulate us visually by ensuring the space is well-considered and designed with optimum storage.

We design to give space to breathe and pause, allowing the person to download their day and reset themselves. We do this by opting for a tonal palette that plays with textures and the natural quality of the materials we select. For example, we often use colors from our lime wash collection mentioned previously, Visual Silence, created in collaboration with Bauwerk Colour. These paints are 100% natural and the pigments, such as green earth, white clay and burnt umber, are so different from the acrylic paints people are used to seeing—they change color depending on the light of the day—furthermore, as they are free of toxins they are a much healthier choice for the inhabitants of a space.

Rip & Tan: You’ve mentioned that your home draws inspiration from holiday. What are some ways you’ve infused the space with elements of your own getaways? What has been the benefit?

Louisa Grey: Over the years, we’ve noticed that people often talk about when they’re going on holiday and their need to escape their day-to-day lives and we wanted to create a space where people felt content and satisfied all of the time. At House of Grey, we have always believed that people can have that ‘holiday life’ at home by creating a place that enables us to decompress and download the day in a nurturing environment. We wanted to show our clients that you can build a life that you don’t want to escape from.

For me, to create that sense of a holiday I wanted an environment to encourage peace and serenity and I consciously created the space with this in mind. Placing the master bedroom at the back of the house so it has views over the trees, means that I am immediately transported out of London, the kitchen space has sliding glass panels which allow us to bring the outside in and remove that ‘wall’ between humans and nature. For me, that is escapism and I can access it every day.

Rip & Tan: Are there any current design trends that worry you or, at the least, give you pause? Why?

Louisa Grey: I think it’s less design trends and more consumer trends—the trend for buying a lot at low cost without considering where an item has come from or where it may end up. It was very important for us to design a collection of rugs that are De Clare labeled showing their nutritional value and stating how long it would take for them to biodegrade. Our Ellipse Rug Collection with Armadillo is 100% natural and each rug has been designed for a separate purpose and room.

Rip & Tan: In contrast, what in the world of design, whether a moment or a movement, is inspiring you lately?

Louisa Grey: Personally, I work intuitively and do not follow interior design trends and have always drawn inspiration from many areas of my life—art, music and fashion being just a few. I draw inspiration from cultural touch points outside of interior design and in particular female pioneers of industry. Someone who comes to mind is the ceramicist Lucie Rie, who was creating new and experimental ceramics, in an era and industry that was predominantly male-dominated—a true revolutionary.

Rip & Tan: As a proponent of a less is more approach, what tips can you give us for editing our own spaces?

Louisa Grey: As a studio, two of our guiding principles are designing person-centered spaces with purposeful design.

This means that when we design we think about how the space will be used in the long term—what will our client want from their home in five years? This allows their home to evolve with them over time and creates an intimate connection with the owners and it also encourages the thinking of what is really necessary in each space right now. This approach ties in perfectly with purposeful design and the idea of purchasing once and keeping forever—buying pieces from artisans or small production lines that have been handmade and are items to treasure.

Rip & Tan: Interior-related or otherwise, what about your home is bringing you the most joy right now?

Louisa Grey: I always love the view of the trees, especially in the spring when the leaves and blossoms bloom in the cherry, apple and pear trees. My daily ritual time out is a bath in the master bedroom, in the winter months this is a candle-lit bath. It shifts me to another world and I don’t feel like I am in London.