Beauty in simplicity | InForm

Updates

Sign up for the latest projects, insights, news and stories from the InForm design community.
Keep up to date with InForm's latest news by subscribing to our regular newsletter

Beauty in simplicity

In life, simplicity is experienced in moments and colours and smells and sounds and memories and places. In a home, simplicity is found both in the expected and the unexpected.

A clever floor plan, the way the kitchen opens up to the garden, a beautiful design element, and a practical spot to hang your things as you walk through the front door: these are the things that we’ve come to expect from our homes.

But what about the things that we can’t quite touch, that we can’t quite see?

The way the sunlight warms your favourite Sunday spot, the way the garden grows and softens around a home over time, the feeling of stealing a few extra moments in bed simply because it’s a Saturday.

These moments are more elusive. Difficult to define but impossible to forget. We can’t anticipate such moments; they’re too intangible, too fleeting. But, they’re usually where the magic happens, both within a home and a life.

Simplicity is what grounds and inspires us at InForm and Pleysier Perkins. From the processes that carry a home from conception to completion, to the beauty that is found and felt in witnessing the final iteration of a project, simplicity drives and unites each and every member of our team.

Here, we discover what simplicity means to them.

Simon Perkins
Principal and Founder,
Pleysier Perkins

Great design is emotive. Great architecture moves us in a way that is difficult to define. At PP we believe in the emotive power of simplicity – it’s the common thread in all of our work. We strive to produce buildings that are bold in their conviction.

Villa Neuendorf, Mallorca, by John Pawson and Claudio Silvestrin has a profound impact on me. A simple gesture in the landscape makes a powerful contribution to its place. It is clever and desirable to make much with little: to accommodate a complex brief in an elegant, simple plan, to design with structural efficiency and material restraint.

Ultimately, the art of simplicity is the creation of memorable objects and spaces that will delight and endure.

Nigel Garson
Senior Project Manager,
InForm

For me, simplicity is found in our toddler-led walk that we journey on with my daughter Hazel every weekend: letting her explore her world and simply watching her live in the present, with no destination in mind.

Nicole Eterovic
Senior Project Coordinator,
InForm

“Dolce far niente” translates to “the sweetness of doing nothing” and it’s something my husband and I try to incorporate into our weekends. We love our social life, but we also love the act of doing the simple things like taking the time to slow down on a Sunday morning and indulge in making a coffee and breakfast together at home, or going for a long drive to the country or the coast and taking our dog for a walk in the wilderness.

Dwayne Trollope
Interior Designer,
Pleysier Perkins

Design can often be obtrusive, creating experiences that are over complicated and unpleasant. To me the translation of simplicity refers to designing for the aim of purpose and not for indulgence.

Although complicated and mathematical, these components of a Japanese joint are hidden, lending to the concept of simplicity. They are designed for the purpose and not for indulgence. Often left as plain timber, the joints are merely a solution to a problem that just so happens to be beautiful without trying.

Josie Somerville
Interior Designer,
Pleysier Perkins

For me, the art of simplicity is the sense of calm and awe when engaging in a beautiful piece of architecture. My favourite building is Heide II, designed by McGlashan and Everist Architects in 1964.

The brief called for the  building to be romantic and nestled in the landscape. The design is timeless, avoiding  any architectural trend and continues to be architecturally significant more than 50 years after its completion. It appears as a sculpture set in the landscape, somewhat reminiscent of a maze as is evident in the floorplan.

The house embodies a sense of mystery. It conceals and reveals as you make your way through the dwelling. Intimate spaces with low ceilings connect to large open areas with a grand sense of scale.