Design Studio

design with meaning

Think beyond style to create a home that celebrates who you are, where you’ve been, and where you’re going.

Edited by Alicia Kellogg

This article first appeared in Summer 2010 Su Casa

Beth Rekow
Rekow Designs
10705 Cielo Vista del Norte, Corrales, New Mexico, 505/792-4780,
web.me.com/dakinieldorarekow/rekow2009/home.html

Background: Originally from the Midwest, Beth Rekow studied comparative literature and art in Colorado and on the West Coast as well as community and regional planning at the University of New Mexico. She lived and studied in Venezuela and Yugoslavia.

Rekow brings this diverse educational background to her designs, drawing from disciplines such as art, architecture, music, and engineering. She is interested in breaking open conventional uses of space and materials to create innovative new solutions.

Rekow Designs provides a full range of design services, including space planning, interior design, and the design and fabrication of one-of-a-kind furniture, lighting, and accessories. Through each aspect of design, Rekow works from the perspective that every element should have a purpose and tell a story. Sustainability and the green element are always at the core of Rekow’s projects.

You’ve said that design has a subconscious power over our behavior and how we function. What does this mean for our homes, the environment we can control?
When you walk in at the end of the day, maybe you are the type who looks to your home to deliver relaxation. Or maybe you look to your home to reinvigorate you—to make you feel awake again because you’re exhausted. You come home, and it’s vibrant, and there’s music, and it’s dynamic. You have your exercise room, and the smell of food, and your kids, and the dogs, and all of this tension and activity are what you ask of it. Or maybe you live and work there, and that’s a complex relationship with your home.

First, it’s defining what the home represents for you and what it needs to provide for you. How does it need to work in terms of the efficiency of getting stuff done—washing your dishes, doing your laundry, watching your TV, playing hopscotch—whatever you do.

For me, it’s not about creating a space that’s heavy and burdened with beautiful stuff. It’s really something that most importantly needs to convey a message and create an atmosphere. Some people will go to feng shui masters, and some people will go to art galleries to find that thing or things that give them that feeling. But you can’t create that with the right objects or the right color pillows. It’s about the composition, and the essence. It’s a complete perspective on how the space is working from the inside out and from the outside in.

We’re here to grow and evolve and learn, and you’ve got to work with your spaces in the same way. Make sure everything you have is what you need and nothing more, and let it change.

How do you approach designing a creative expression of the people who live in a home?
The personal narrative is what gives our spaces value. We should consider our living environment a reflection of our values, emotions, and goals. Without that, space is simply a shell with no narrative or identity. The space needs to tell a story of who you are, where you’ve been, and where you’re going. Once that narrative is defined, then work with a designer to help translate that story into a living space reflecting the foundation and changes in your life—political, spiritual, and physical. The space holds the objects, images, and functionality that remind us who we are and asks us to become the people we need to be.

How can we begin this process?
Write. The trickiest thing is when you’re married, and you’re working with your spouse—it’s really an exercise that you should go through. Don’t think of it in terms of design. Pretend you’re at the therapist. What are your goals? Then put that into the context of a living environment, and how does that need to reflect your daily functional challenges of getting up and getting out on time? How do you want to grow, and how can your home represent your life and your choices?

What does this kind of consideration bring?
More depth, and a more genuine representation of who you are. It brings in your past, your present, and your future. As you keep looking at the space and living within it, you see reflections of not just you but where you’ve been, what part of the world you’ve participated in, and how you then want that to be represented in the future.

Thinking of my own space, for the first time I’ve brought out books I read in college, and my memory has been completely reinvigorated. I think so often about the thesis I wrote, and the books I read, and how they are very present in everything I do right now.

I also encourage asking people who are meaningful in your life to give you something from their world, whether that’s a piece of art, or something they made when they were five, or an old table that doesn’t have any value to them. Every time my mom asks me what I want for Christmas, I tell her to bring something from home. Last time she brought this pitcher. I would never have selected it, but it’s so her, and it’s something I grew up with.

Then I have stuff I designed, stuff from my great-grandparents, stuff I picked up at Ikea, stuff I sewed, and stuff dogs have ripped—which is absolutely everything—and I think that broad range of representation is the literal sense of who you are and where you’ve been. And that’s what I prefer, over a style. It’s meaning and value that I’m after. Beauty is part of it, but there’s got to be a deeper way of getting to that point, and the intent has to be driven by something other than looking pretty.

How do you view set definitions of style?
Style is a very momentary, temporal condition. My goal is not to evoke, refer to, or conjure a style, but to capture the essence of the space and establish a clear articulation and identity. Whether that is a very personal residential project or a strong commercial brand, the goal for me is to translate the environment so it captures a specific emotion and agenda.

I think style is something you need to find yourself. If you’re passionate about airplanes, or dresses, or lunch boxes, let it be known. Bring that into your narrative, and make that part of your day and your life. Sew a bunch of dresses together and make curtains, or line your walls with lunch boxes, or hang airplanes from the ceiling. There are definitely creative ways of really having fun creating an installation, and I love that. Honoring things that give us meaning and giving them a creative space is very inspiring and should be done.

You recently completed a green remodel at your home. Can you tell us about it?
We rebuilt the house entirely. We have a gray water system and a roof catchment system. We have some solar-powered elements, and our insulation is very high R-value. I think it’s an intelligent-sized house. Our materials and finishes are very sustainable, for the most part. The countertops, benches, and many things like that are from salvaged materials.

How do you approach design from a green perspective?
As we all know, green is a washed-out word, so overused we don’t question its origin. We are consistently trying to reword and rewrite the word to obtain new meaning and give it momentum, but it’s become a seductive marketing technique. It currently justifies continued consumption on a continued scale with the same seduction as always, simply with new tag lines.

We need to focus on the energy systems we require in our residential environment. Where is our energy coming from, and what appliances and systems consume energy on a daily basis? How can we adjust our consumption so we use less? We must divert water consumption and utilize gray and black water systems. Here we are careless if we’re not employing the sun for a source of energy.

A very efficient manufacturing process designed to generate little waste has as much, if not more value than the actual finished product itself, which is what we tend to focus on. What is this thing made of—recycled plastic bottles? But do you know what kind of heating process goes into that, and what kind of chemicals are necessary to bond those together, and its lifetime? Those are things we aren’t necessarily educated to consider. Then there’s the transportation. Where are materials coming from, and how long do they take to get here? Manufacturing is important, and that’s part of the reason I like having things fabricated here in New Mexico. People consider that one-off or custom, but the savings in manufacturing, the creation of jobs, and the savings in transportation are really a significant value.

We need to invest the time to understand more carefully how we are living. Green is about living with less and curbing our addiction not just to coal but to the things we are convinced will make our lives “better.”

What impact can green choices make?
A huge impact. If you actually write out your life goals, and go through that process—ask yourself, what are the five things I need? Give yourself those five things, and live with that for a month. Feel the absence of stuff. That’s why we go camping, because you have to free yourself from that ritual of needing. If you can get through that, life is going to be different.
For that entire month, also think about the food you’re eating and preparing in your kitchen. That’s all a part of living in the house. Clean out your kitchen. Take every single scrap of food out of there, and only put in real food that gives you nutrients and value. You’re going to taste food in a very different way. It’s going to give you nutrients and value in the same way your house will.

If you go through that whole process, you’re going to be a different person. Not many people will survive a month of that, or would ever dare to go there. So there’s my regimen. Report back when you’re done.

What else can we do at home?
Think on a larger scale. Get beyond your physical space to your behavior and rituals and how you occupy that space. Do your choices reinforce a sustainable lifestyle? Are you proud of how you live now, and do you think that in 100 years it’s possible for an entire community to live with the same practices? Then keep the stuff you have and make it work—clean out all that is not necessary, and give away or recycle the rest. Find the people who will take your stuff, and consider why your waste has value to someone else, but not you. How can you revalue goods, stuff, objects?

Your friend might have an extra table, or you might find a discarded tree stump that could make the perfect table. Go to garage sales, estate sales, or salvage companies. You need a table? Buy a piece of I beam. That’s what I did. Put a piece of plastic on it.

Everybody tells me they’re not creative and they’re not artists. The creative process is painful for all of us, at whatever level we’re working on. But design is a creative process, and the more creative you can get, and the more invested in that process you can become, the more interesting it’s going to be. The key is really just engaging. It’s so exciting and fulfilling to find something that somebody has disregarded and give it a new lease. For many people who aren’t declaring themselves as creative, it’s a pretty great, easy place to experiment. If you’re a biker, take old bike tires and hang them on the wall, and put some Christmas lights on them. Make a chandelier out of it.

So it’s about being free to enjoy your home?
And to fail. I think that’s really what the creative process is all about. You’ve got to go through that sense of dissatisfaction; that sense of not being complete, of not obtaining the intent that you originally had. Of not being there. And then you keep trying; you keep working. You keep planting these seeds. You keep making attempts. You try bringing in something new. That’s the biggest fear everybody has—it’s not going to look like the DIY project I saw on TV the other day. But the rewards are huge when you feel like you own this little project, and it’s you. For whatever it is, it’s yours.