“We’re having to plan functions with greater complexity”

Mr Teherani, you don’t just design buildings, but also interiors together with their furnishings and everyday objects. What developments are you currently observing in interior design?

We’re having to plan functions with greater complexity and layer them flexibly. Too much is changing too fast. The demand for space has got to be curtailed overall.

What influence will the issue of sustainability have on architects’ and designers’ creative work, and how are our interiors changing as a result?

The long-term value of our ideas for interiors and the use of materials is the central focus. That’s an old thesis, but it’s still valid.

Where are you seeing the most exciting innovations in the field of materials?

In 3D printing and cradle to cradle. In a sustainable cycle, materials have to be employed in such a way that they can be used in products for as long as possible and recovered for future production processes, minimising the loss as waste wherever possible. Products must be dismantled in innovative ways and put back together.

Do you use augmented reality to plan and design interiors? What impact do you think such digital tools and AI will have on future design?

With AI, when you’re faced with any question, you can very quickly come up with new possibilities and ideas that you maybe wouldn’t have thought of so easily otherwise. But you’ve got to be able to assess and evaluate the computer’s rapid fire. On the other hand, when it comes to taking over tedious, labour-intensive processes, AI will be unbeatable. Some fields of human activity will very quickly fall by the wayside.

In the future, will automated functions be built into our interiors?

Robots? I don’t think so – it would be far too expensive.

How do you think our living spaces and work environments and, as a result, the requirements for interior design will change in the future?

Functions will be intelligently and flexibly condensed and networked across an intelligently reduced overall area. We will no longer be able to realise the accustomed demand for space in office- and homebuilding for growing numbers of people. The intelligent approach will lie not in gaining more space for everyone, but in gaining more functions from flexible surfaces that offer more than a dining table or a bed.

Elke Malek, Head of Design at Hadi Teherani Design Studio, will present its approach to design at interzum 2023. The talk will take place on the interzum Trend Stage on 9 May. You can find further information on this and other talks in the event search.