THE ARCHITECTS JOURNAL

SEPTEMBER 15, 2026

Why Interior Design Begins at the Beginning

A space influences how you live, work, and interact. So, your life should help determine the space.

When most people hear interior design, they think about what comes near the end.

Paint colors. Furniture. Tile. Lighting. Finishes.

Those things matter. But they are not where interior design begins.

Interior design isn't what we put into a space after it is designed. It is part of deciding what that space should be in the first place.

At Cadence Architecture, that means thinking about interiors from the very beginning—how a space functions, how people move through it, what they experience, and ultimately, how it should make them feel.

Function. Flow. Feel.

We think about interior design through three interconnected ideas: function, flow, and feel.

Function: What Needs to Happen Here?

Before deciding the size and shape of a room, we need to understand what needs to happen inside it.  How many people gather around the table? Where does the furniture go? How does a team collaborate? Is privacy important? Where will technology be integrated? Is there an important piece of artwork, equipment, or furniture that should influence the space?

These questions begin to determine walls, windows, doors, lighting, cabinetry, electrical, and even the proportions of the room itself.

We don't want to design a room first and then figure out how life fits inside it.

Flow: How Should People Experience It?

A floor plan tells you where the rooms are.  It doesn't tell you the entire story of how you will experience them.  What do you see when you enter? Where is your eye naturally drawn? How does one space reveal another? How does natural light lead you through the building? How do clients, employees, guests, or family members move differently through it?

Good design isn't simply arranging rooms efficiently. It is choreographing the experience of moving through them.

Feel: What Should the Space Make You Feel?

Two spaces can have exactly the same square footage and create completely different experiences.  One may feel intuitive, generous, connected, and filled with natural light. Another—with exactly the same square footage—may simply feel like a room.  Ceiling height, proportion, natural light, views, materials, acoustics, and lighting all contribute to an experience that can't be understood by looking at square footage alone.

The square footage is the same. The experience is entirely different.  That difference is design.

A predetermined plan can be decorated, personalized, and upgraded. But changing what goes into a space isn't necessarily the same as designing the space itself.

That is the difference between selecting a space and creating one.

Avoiding “Mr. Potato Head Architecture”

Around the office, we sometimes jokingly call the alternative “Mr. Potato Head architecture.”

Start with the building. Then attach the lighting. Add the millwork. Pick the finishes. Hang the shades. Arrange the furniture.  Each piece might be beautiful.

But you're still decorating the potato.

Integrated design begins differently.  Instead of asking what we can add to the architecture after it has been designed, we ask what the architecture needs to become.  If we know a space will have a decorative ceiling, we can coordinate the structure, lighting, HVAC, and ceiling heights around it. If motorized shades are important, we can plan for power and concealment. If a significant piece of furniture or artwork will anchor a room, the architecture, lighting, and electrical systems can respond to it.  These elements aren't decorations applied to a finished building.  They become part of the architecture.

Design It Once

There is also a practical reason to make these decisions early: it saves money.  A decorative ceiling discovered late can mean relocating lights, diffusers, sprinklers, and framing.  Motorized shades added late may require opening finished walls for power.  Furniture, technology, or artwork considered too late may reveal that outlets, blocking, lighting—or even the wall itself—are in the wrong place.  On a drawing, these are relatively simple decisions. During construction, they become changes.

The least expensive time to solve a design problem is before it becomes a construction problem.

Early coordination reduces conflicts, limits changes, and allows the architect, interior designer, engineers, contractor, and client to work toward one unified vision.

To us, that is simply good stewardship.

Form Follows Life

Louis Sullivan famously told us that form follows function.

We believe great design goes one step further.

Form follows life.

How we live.
How we work.
How we gather.
How we move.
How we experience the world around us.

These aren't questions to ask after the architecture has been designed.

They are where the architecture should begin.

Interior design doesn't begin after the architecture is finished. It begins with the very first question: How should this place make life better?

That is Validated Design from the Inside Out.