LOOKS MATTER.

The first three days of the week are always unbearably difficult, what with being expected to function as an adult after 48 hours of letting go of just that. The view from Monday is rather grey. As a result, there are few things as rewarding as the mid-week food escapade. You’re not looking for something expensive or high-brow, you simply need an escape from the magnificent mundane; and the local wine bar is calling. Sure enough, by Wednesday lunchtime you have already foreseen yourself sat out on the sidewalk that evening sipping a funky (almost frisky!) Pet Nat whilst pairing it with some (any) form of cheese, because you’re bourgeois but not actually educated enough to know what kind of cheese will compliment something as (quite frankly) silly as a natural wine. Fortune is on your side however, as you have of course befriended the bar owner, so you asking them to ‘surprise’ you looks more like a confidence in their abilities than a lack in yours. The end of the day rolls around and you’re buzzing – the gang’s all outside and ready to go.

The path to enlightenment however, is not without its deviations. En route you walk past ‘that new spot’ that you’ve seen on some Urban List article somewhere that your desk buddy also keeps talking about, and for a moment the strength you possessed before, allowing you to accept your creature-of-habit self, falters. Seconds later, you’re all seated at this new joint about four Instagram posts deep and you hear yourself ordering the special. You need something special.

It was affordable. And it was delicious. And man you even felt like you were on a first-name basis with the wine. So why did you walk out feeling…dissatisfied? You’re running through the night in your head, comparing it to aforementioned beloved wine bar and it all seems to line up - yet you feel about as syncopated as Radiohead’s Videotape. You can't quite put your finger on it. In fact, it’s not until the next day when you sit back at your desk, longingly looking over at the Interior Design team who have all just come back from yet another client lunch, that it all falls into place.

The feng shui was well off.  

The venue's lighting designer  seemed to have forgotten that this restaurant would be open at night, and it was so dark in there your body naturally started to accumulate the same levels of anxiety you had felt decades before in life-threatening nightclubs. The table erred on the side of child, because no matter which way you twisted your legs it felt like your kneecaps kept knocking on the front door of what could have been a pleasant experience. Similarly, the chairs had backs so low you’d think they were trying to bring back the early 2000’s and what used to be called ‘fashionable’.

In hindsight, eating wasn’t that simple either as the cutlery had rather fat handles, meaning you felt a little incompetent whilst simply trying to move food into your mouth with some semblance of grace. And thinking about it now you realise the ache in your upper arm is from having to constantly pick up the water jug to refill everyone’s water (you have manners, after all) because the glasses were about on par with a sippy-cup (Fresh in your mind: the article you read in Bon Appetit magazine a few months ago referring to food trends that need to die).

After having cracked onto the second (delicious) bottle of wine, naturally it was time to pop into the bathroom, yet it turned out to be far more sobering than you had bargained for. In their defence, the lighting designer sure did make up for their lack of lighting in the dining room. A bathroom so bright you could hear The Cure’s Just like Heaven echoing in your mind, and you fully expect some sort of divine encounter. Walking back to your table, you seemed to have transcended all levels of human existence as you could now see light particles floating in front of you.

The importance of well-considered design is not apparent to all in the same manner it is to those of us who study it for years on end. However, that does not detract from the fact that people sense spatial qualities, and are very much affected by their surroundings. The role of the designer is not always to create something that asks for attention, but rather to create something that subtly allows for a heightened experience. This is not a new concept, yet we tend to forget the importance of lifestyle design – We are far more susceptible to the effects of colour, light and form than we might think, and this is especially important in a setting like a restaurant where the sense are heightened and activated on all fronts.

Even a bottle of Chateau Margaux 1787 can’t save a night when the plate-to-table ratio is horribly skewed. It becomes the con to the convivial.