Disaster Preparedness: Nice When You Have A Choice!

​Interior Design, including trends and fads, is usually driven by artistic, circumstantial and authentic design factors – and it’s good to know that there are elements of close control involved.  And, it is nice to have choices and input, industry by industry, concerning what will drive the next trends in style, color, cultural emphasis and other nuance.
 
But, greater external circumstances can turn choice on its head and force us (to some degree) to follow rather than lead.  When pragmatism following disaster, drives change and choices, creativity is challenged; and innovation must often develop within somewhat more confining parameters.

Unfortunately, a hurricane, flood or fire can bring the outside inside. Thinking ahead with preventive design considerations is a smart move!

​Double talk? Not hardly!  Just taking a close look at the creative arts, including Interior Design, in the light of emergencies, catastrophes and trials – such as pandemic, fire, flood, hurricane and earthquake!  (We are certainly having our share, in our country, in this decade.)
 
How do these phenomena affect the Interior Design industry and the solutions offered to clients in these circumstances?   The quick and easy part of the answer starts with the very broad question of Interior space with limited damage.  When damage is limited, fewer choices are compromised.  Restore? Or use the “opportunity” of the emergency to implement some choices you have been wanting, but just haven’t gotten around to implementing.
It’s an unexpected choice.
 
Extensive destruction poses different challenges; and with many situations, where the need for remedies was not a voluntary situation, the opportunity for open creativity is compromised.  Everything from timing to finances to expediency becomes the drivers.  Some choices simply evaporate in favor of the immediacy of crisis management.  Nice to have all of the choices, but the very nature of disasters simply interferes with that list.
 
Coping with any Interior design project where absolute control over choices has been usurped by emergency or disaster requires excellent innovative skills.  That means expertise and experience that knows how to work around and through obstacles, handicaps and limitations that threaten client choices, and client control over their project
 
Emergencies and disasters can compromise Interior design remedial work in several ways.  Seemingly insurmountable financial challenges, local restrictions on rebuild and environmental as well as property destruction are just a few.   If property is damaged – AND the hillside has collapsed, limitations of choice just multiplied.
 
Consider remedies in anticipation of possible emergencies or disasters.  Preventive measures on secondary aspects can make all the difference – like the retaining wall you meant to get to, that isn’t far from the living room windows!
 
Nice when you have choices, because choices can have chain reactions.   Like that old ditty about the head bone being connected to the neck bone, etc., any one aspect of your Interior space is relevant to its adjacent aspect. And all your Interior site aspects are intrinsically connected to what happens with its immediate external aspect.
 
Your professional Interior design connection always looks at the big picture!  That big picture currently contains disastrous elements, unexpected emergency elements and a health crisis, as well as the consequential ripple effects of all three.   All three impact our economic stability – as individuals, families, businesses and communities.  In all such situations, our choices are trimmed. It is so important to make the right ones – the ones that serve recovery the best, for the circumstances.
 
If confronted – on any level of seriousness – with unwanted, unexpected Interior space problems, consider talking with an Interiors expert.  At this time, families are modifying home interiors in order to incorporate additional members.  Businesses are puzzling through revisions of workspace.  Schools and other institutions face fewer choices with more consideration factors!
 
It is nice to have choices.  Let’s maximize the number and minimize forfeiture!