Interior Design

Austin-Smith: Lord Interiors was established in the 1960’s when the Practice decided to expand its scope of services to include interior design, undertaking highly-acclaimed schemes for notable clients such as IBM, Topshop, and Heffers Bookshops. Today Austin-Smith:Lord Interiors enjoys an outstanding reputation, and is responsible for some of the practice’s most high-profile clients. Our interiors team has won numerous awards over the years, a testament to its rigorous and considered approach, and its ability to exceed the expectations of our clients.

As consistent team players we offer a comprehensive service, working alongside architects, mechanical and electrical engineers, acoustic consultants, structural engineers, project managers, and quantity surveyors to realise the client’s brief. Our capabilities include: feasibility studies (which consider strategic business and building analysis, occupancy reviews, and cost analysis), expert advice on working standards and ergonomics, interior finishes specification, MBS spec writing, space planning, and furniture design and specification. We have specialist knowledge in a range of sectors, including commercial, retail, education, arts, health, leisure, residential, and transportation.

Our approach to our projects has remained consistent throughout our forty years as interior designers. We aspire to the very highest standards; continuously challenging the brief, working closely with the client, producing tailor-made work to ensure an exceptional result.We work with end users from the outset of the project; our education projects, in particular, have provided the opportunity for us to develop specialised workshops, role-playing sessions, creative brainstorming, and other activities intended to inspire end users to take an active part in their project. To this end, effective communication is crucial in producing positive results, and is embedded within the design process from inception. It is through communication that Austin-Smith:Lord Interiors is able to apply creative problem solving to produce bespoke designs of which clients can be proud.Sustainability is a fundamental principle of our design approach. The intended outcome of our designs is that the scheme should minimise adverse social, environmental and economic impacts. This is achieved by producing schemes which are efficient to operate, use resources effectively, minimise waste and pollution, and protect the health of the end user and the wider environment during construction, operation, re-use and at the end of its useful life.

Our projects also look to enhance positive social and economic impacts by providing an environment that is appropriate: more responsive to individual, business and community needs and aspirations, more flexible and functional, more cost effective to run and easier to maintain, and more respectful of the environment. It is as a result of these measures that the practice has made considerable strides in terms of sustainability, last year completing the first BREEAM ‘Excellent’ Further Education building in the UK.Austin-Smith:Lord Interiors has an impressive client base, from blue-chip companies to local authorities. Our clients include: Argent Group, Benfield Group, Binder Hamlyn, Bristol Myers Squibb, Cable and Wireless, Coopers & Lybrand, Countryside Council for Wales, CSC, Ernst & Young, Halton Borough Council, HMCS, Liverpool John Moores University, Railtrack, University of Manchester, University of Wales, Cardiff, and many others.