Return to People: The Enduring Power of Place

“We use the word purpose a lot,” said Cheryl Durst, International Interior Design Association’s (IIDA) Executive Vice President and CEO, “but what design brings to the table is also a focus on people and place. So how do we reconnect people to place with that important underlying factor of purpose?”

It’s an of-the-moment question that holds significant impact for the built environment and beyond — and was the central theme of a recent International WELL Building Institute (IWBI) Connecting on Purpose Salon in New York City, sponsored by Milliken and co-hosted by IWBI President and CEO Rachel Hodgdon and IIDA’s Durst at the Henrybuilt showroom in SoHo.

"It’s vitally important that our spaces and places bring out the best in us and do more than just support our daily functions, but really enhance them,” shared Hodgdon, during the intimate dinner that featured thoughtful and provocative commentary on how places can create and maintain positive impacts on human health, connection and inclusion.

To meet the salon participants and hear the conversation, watch the Connecting on Purpose Salon video series, "Return to People: The Enduring Power of Place.”

From our current moment to our collective future, key takeaways from around the table included:

• People—designers, clients and end users—are more attuned than ever before to the power of place and its impacts on our health and well-being, the strength of our connections and our future success. This means that designers are working in a moment of unprecedented opportunity.
• There is no single solution, no one answer, no “one size fits all” when it comes to the workplace. That overarching realization is crucial to leadership when thinking about place and people.
• What’s next for design? Creating spaces to cultivate belonging and designing for inclusion. Designing inclusively allows us to incorporate locality, authenticity and culture—and thus to enable people with diverse identities and perspectives to feel truly connected and able to contribute in meaningful ways.
• Data and research can offer us ever-more-refined insights into the impact of design on the places and spaces where we spend our lives. As we look for well-defined, quantitative information to supplement qualitative feedback, data will become a powerful tool to help shape future environments.

Participants:
Edwin Beltran, Partner, Interior Design Leader, NBBJ
Bill Browning, Founding Partner, Terrapin Bright Green
Mark Bryan, Senior Consultant, Lead for Built Environment, Hospitality, Retail, Restaurants & CPG, Future Today Institute
Gabrielle Bullock, Principal Director of Global Diversity, Perkins and Will
Rick Cook, Founding Partner, COOKFOX Architects
Jessica Cooper, Chief Product Officer, IWBI
Robert MacMeccan, VP for Global Marketing, Design, and Product Development, Milliken & Company
Jonathan Rose, President, Jonathan Rose Companies
David Sprouls, President, NY School of Interior Design
Khoi Vo, CEO, ASID
Lois Wellwood, Global Interior Design Director, HDR

Co-hosts:
Rachel Hodgdon, President and CEO, IWBI
Cheryl Durst, Executive Vice President and CEO, IIDA

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