We spoke to our interior designers Isabella Elsworth and Eleanor Penny about their excitement for Layrd Design's Future Spaces event and the importance of centring this event around design innovations in sustainability and wellbeing.
Our Future Spaces event is an afternoon of talks and workshops on creating sustainable workplaces and enhancing your staff wellbeing. Come along for interactive discussions and meet our partners at Tarkett Flooring, Orangebox and The Good Plant Company.
Tickets for the event on the 21st July are available here.
What’s your involvement in the Future Spaces event?
Eleanor: I’ll be having a conversation with Ruscha Fields at The Good Plant Company, talking about how excellent plants are for your health and wellbeing and which plants will work best for certain environments. I’m also running our moss frame workshop, which will give people something hands-on to try and a cool item to take home with them after the event.
Isabella: I’m there to learn by meeting new people and listening to the talks from Tarkett, Orangebox and The Good Plant Company. It’s Layrd Design’s first event which is pretty impressive and something exciting to be a part of. I’m also looking forward to getting creative with the moss making too, which’ll be a fun activity to get stuck into.
Why is this event important for the industry?
Isabella: It’s important because sustainability and wellbeing are such huge topics at the minute. We went to Clerkenwell Design Week in May and it came up a lot there, so we’re really keen to bring the conversation away from London and into other parts of the country too, because there are so many companies and employees who could really benefit from this.
Eleanor: It’s important to show people that spaces for sustainability and wellbeing don’t have to be wildly expensive or difficult to put into action. They can be an easy shift to make and can drastically improve everyone’s mental health and help tackle the climate crisis. As more and more innovations occur, these elements become more commonplace and therefore cheaper.
Eleanor: Our Future Spaces speaker Tarkett is a market leader and will be showcasing all the incredible ways they recycle and reuse old flooring, including vinyl floors which have historically been identified as difficult to reuse. They’re constantly innovating to make these practices as sustainable and eco-friendly as possible.
Isabella: We want to educate attendees on this shift, to ensure they leave feeling confident in how these changes are accessible for their business and so that employees can be empowered to suggest these changes to their employers too.
Which sustainable design features will be on show at the event?
Eleanor: There’ll be cradle-to-cradle sustainable flooring from Tarkett, plus sustainable, ergonomic furniture from Orangebox (who also have a new Preloved range of upcycling used furniture) and a range of plants from The Good Plant Company.
Isabella: They’ll also each deliver a talk explaining how their products promote affordable sustainability and wellbeing in more detail, which I’m really looking forward to listening to and learning from.
Eleanor: Our team here at Layrd Design will also be there to talk about how we can incorporate all of these exciting design elements into our projects.
What are you most excited about for the event?
Isabella: I’m excited to meet new people and learn more from the speakers there, and to see what conversations emerge during and after the event too.
Isabella: The industry is changing rapidly in terms of sustainable options and it’s always good to stay up to date with these trends and developments.
Eleanor: I’m excited for the talks, I watched webinars with Nathan Hurley from Orangebox during the pandemic so it’ll be really great to listen to him talk in person this time. Also having companies come to Norwich is really exciting because sustainability and wellbeing shouldn’t just be something that London companies do, it should be a nationwide priority too.
Eleanor: I’m looking forward to having conversations with people who know and care a lot about sustainability and wellbeing…and finding out about self-watering plants for our office too!
Interested in attending the Future Spaces event?
Future Spaces will be held at the Top of the Terrace at Norwich City Football Club on the 21st July 2022. The event will begin at 2pm and each ticket will cost £10 with an additional £10 for the moss-making workshop if you book this too.
