mexican inspired kitchen design
hi, i'm dasha schindler, you're travelling photographer exploring interior design and architecture and with me today is enid, a fabulous interior designer in mexico city. enid, we've been chatting last time and you've told me how did you come across the idea to dointerior design? tell me! it started in the theatre. i was making the design for the backstage -oh ok- since then i've studies what kind of illumination the shadows and lights and everything and that shows me how to put a space with light and little pieces of harmonic objects. how old were you?
i was 18. -ah ok! and then you knew you wanted to do interior design? yeah oh it was a kind of a combination of...cinema and theatre (enid actually wanted to study cinema), industrial design oh all these things together it was for me like "ok, i should go for architecture" and there was a school, the school i went to called central diseno and it had this career of interior design and architecture together in one wow and that's what you've studied? wow, great! and now we have your own company? -yes! - how is that going? is it tough to be on your own? have your own company?
yeah, it was difficult at first but with the years of experience it was easier for me to getcloser to the clients, to know about what do you want - not for living but what do you want to experience. that was the first step, so...or friends, family... have you ever decorated a house of a friend or a family? yeah they came to me,
"tell me, please, what colours to use?" so what colours do you use? at first i was using a lot of terracotas, yellows, all kinds of reds so that's the fashion. - is that something typical mexican? - yeah well, my family is from hidalgo, so all the houses there use these colours in the architecture
from the outside... - and the inside as well? yeah i've seen that, that's why mexicois so beautiful! you go down the street and you see orange! i was in veracruz and there wasthis green house but not just green but kind of green-yellow almost toxic colour - i know! - well, i loved it, it's great! yes, that's what makes us mexicans so colorfuland so alive! because i think that it's not just a tradition a traditional thing it's more like the essence of the people here in mexico, they're so warm - yes, they are! - the colours are the same in the architecture. and in interior design, too. so, there was a time, when all these kinds of mexican interiors were ... how do you say?
how does it look like? - the people wantthese colours in the interiors for the first time in modern architecture there were architects like legorreta that started to use these colors not only in the architecture but also interior design -so you're saying before they were usingmore mutual colours and then they went back to to the colourful... -strong colours,- a, cool! and what else would you say is typical mexican when it comes to architecture, apart from the colours, is there anything...? yea, we are not, like... so minimal, we're more like... we want to use all the stuff haha...like pecho paloma - what's that?
it's like a cornisa in the outside -like alcoves? yes definitely i around the windowsdoors like what i've observed is that you have a lot of space, negative space, strong colours and then windows nicely decorated... yes, there are a lot of ornaments, so... - cool, and inside as well, ornaments as well? - it depends. i don't like them but a lot of people here in the city, they are used to use a lot of ornaments - so when it comes to your clients, how does that work? so a client comes to you and has he or she does he already have an idea what to door how does it work? sometimes. sometimes they don't knoweven what they want to, so...- if they don't know what they want
how do you decide what to do with the space? the first time, the first client that i was helping, she didn't want to do more ornamenting, but she didn't know either what... "ok, how can i help you?" but the first thing that i observe is the place, you know, like the light, the sun, how does it get in the house, the location and other parts in the house. i always observe like a little piece of all the entire space, so i canfocus on that be inspired by it
- and then you build around that thing? oh, that's nice! - yeah, it's like a very personal thing that i do but also i'm used to ask them questions you know like "what do you want to do in this area?" "what do you want to experience...what do you want to feel...how do you want to feel?" - is there a response that you get a lot or is everyone different? how do they wanna feel at home? kind of relaxed? or what do they say? - they're different. it depends, because a lot of people told me that they wanna feel relaxed, as you said, but a lot of them were like "i want a monastery."
- oh really?! a monastery? - yeah, and isolated from all the... - ah, like an oasis, away from everything? - away from everything. even the other cohabitants. and how did you do that then? just throw everything out? - yeah, it's like, "ok, let's start from zero." no i'm always asking them questions is the only way to know what they want. and these case it comes from the heart of the house. here in mexico it's always the kitchen! it's like a strange thing, i know, it's cultural. but it starts in the kitchen. and then it's like, ok... there's like the first room or the principal room. and the last place is the bathroom, i don't know why, it's not important,
everybody can use it. but the heart here is always the kitchen and the dining room so we start from there. because a lot of people are hanging around the kitchen when they came home from the world, the school. it's the common place to meet. - and the kitchen will also have strong colours? are they new kitchens or old-fashioned kitchens mostly? - it depends on the people and their age. you know around the 30s or 40s they prefer more minimalistic kitchens, everything hiding...
but people of a higher age, they like more the antic kitchens you know. everything hanging, strong colours and woods... you know, more warm. - so how do you decide when there's a lotof light coming in for example, would you pick a light colour or darker colour? -if you want to... choose darker colour, because otherwise it reflects the light. but if it's not a large room, you can pick just one face to be darker and the other ones can be white. - lovely! so is that a trend at the moment, that you could say, something new happening?
- yeah i observe that we are gettingback to the .... vintage stuff. oh yes! great! so from the 70s or even older? - yeah, 70s, 60s...from that age. it's like, i don't know like everything is like hipsters idea and everything is like "we should do all this old stuff and bring it back." - how long do you think that's gonna last? - i don't think it's a permanent trend? i think it goes more from the othertrend that i have used more, these idea of nature
coming back into the house, because we love all the plants -i've seen that, yes. - yes, we love them! - but also inside the house? - yes, inside the house. - do we have trees growing inside the house? - yeah, trees, and green walls, everything is like... getting bigger and bigger. this organic kind of life that everyone to experience, so likegetting back to nature. - i can see that having a consistency or alonger life, right, the green...but the vintage stuff probably a year into andthen people regret it and they have to do everything new? which is good for you, right? - of course, it's a business! - i love that, really great! so do you have any advice for your clients, especially the difficult ones? 'listen to your interior designer!"
yes, here in mexico we say, lo barratos-lo mas caro. the cheaper...the more costly. - so meaning, the cheaper the material you use, the more cost you will have later on, is that what you mean? - and the other one is, here in mexico we are 'autodidactas' - so you learn yourself? - all the people want to be their own architects and designers of course so when actually a real architect goesinto their project there's a lot of problems there because like, ok, "you have spent a lot of money and it didn't go well. we have to solve all the problems and start again." - excellent, great! - trust the architect!
thank you so much! i hope we'll do thatagain!! yeah thank you! - thanks, see ya!!