Portfolio.Sample

josie ancas er interior design portfolio

forage Hospitality Project Leith Library, Edinburgh ECA, YR4, 2026

hospitality before intervention...

Forage is a project that is rooted in personal experience and professional reflection. After more than 20 years in the hospitality industry, I have witnessed the physical and emotional demands placed on those who sustain it. While restaurants are designed to elevate the guest experience, staff environments are often overlooked. Long shifts, physical strain, and constant sensory stimulation normalise stress and fatigue, leading to burnout and high staff turnover.

Forage is a restaurant and retail concept that responds to this imbalance by repositioning staff well-being as a central design priority. Informed by my experience, the project explores how spatial planning, acoustics, materiality, and restorative spaces can support staff while maintaining a meaningful guest experience.

The concept of foraging suggests a slower, more intuitive way of discovering food, objects, and knowledge—shaping an environment that encourages pause, reflection, and connection.

Ultimately, the project re-imagines hospitality as a shared, supportive experience, grounded in the well-being of those who create it.

Collage - Hospitality Staff Retention Crisis

Imagery sourced from Historic Environment Scotland archives and hospitality industry workforce surveys.

Model Making

The site presented a significant acoustic challenge.

These concept models explore three-dimensional responses to that problem — investigating how acoustic panelling could address the issue while becoming a design feature in its own right. The forms developed through the modelling process also informed a natural way-finding system, drawing the eye upward through the space toward the original Art Deco skylights above the staff rejuvenation garden.

Conceptual Model Iteration 1

Conceptual Model Iteration 2

Conceptual Model Iteration 3

Final Concept Model — Staff Mezzanine, Rejuvenation Garden and Bar

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Key:

1 Accessible Ramp 2 Main Foyer 3 Reception 4 Coat Check 5 Retail Space 6 Unisex Baby Change 7 Retail Display 8 Coffee/Reading Nook 9 Wine Cellar 10 Lounge Bar 11 Main Bar 12 Large Group Booth 13 Staff Quiet Space 14 Waiter Station 15 Kitchen 16 Staff Office 17 Ancillary Storage 18 Staff Locker Room

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1 Retail Shelving 2 Mezzanine Dining 3 Wine Cellar 4 Booth Dining 5 Basement 6 Kitchen Pass/Severy 7 Retail Space 8 Retail Display Shelving

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RECOVER ..... below, a more enclosed retreat offers relief from constant noise and movement.

Acoustically insulated and softly lit, the space reduces sensory load, allowing the body to settle and the mind to withdraw

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Basement GA AA

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RELEASE ..... above the pace of the restaurant, the mezzanine becomes a place of release.

A sheltered garden softens the working day, light filters in, textures quiet the senses, and the boundary between inside and out begins to blur.

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Key: 5 Basement 6 Kitchen/Pass 7 Retail Space 8 Retail Display

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Key: 1 Accessible Ramp 2 Entrance Foyer 3 Reception 4 Coat Check 5 Retail Space 6 Unisex Baby Change 7 Retail Display/Storage 8 Coffee/Reading Nook 9 Wine Cellar 10 Lounge Bar 11 Main Bar 12 Large Group Booth 13 Staff Break Space 14 Waiter Station 15 Kitchen 16 Staff Office 17Ancillary Storage 18 Staff Locker Room

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Section Drawing DD

Images Not To Scale

RETAIL: raw, earthy, exposed, (soil & plants)

Dining: canopy, light, open, (growth & landscape)

PRIVACY: underground, dark, (rooted & secure)

Created Using Sketch Up & Photoshop

Staff Retreat - Seating Detail

Positioned beneath a skylight on the mezzanine level, this detail is designed around staff recovery.

Cork flooring and acoustic soundproofing protect the quiet staff break space below from restaurant noise. A removable planter box brings planting directly into the space, making the most of the natural light to create a calm, restorative retreat for staff between shifts.

113 9mm Corten Steel, Fap Oxide, 9mm thick, planter edge, adhesive application

30mm European Oak Timber, set with two part epoxy adhesive, sealed with polyurethane varnish, ergonomically shaped

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Stoane Lighting, Pipien, Screw Fixed, Adjustable Luminance Direction, to create dramatic effects of planting

Polythene waterproof membrane, low density, high tear resistance, to line planter and create insulation

Stoane Lighting, Billet, Magnetically Attached To Metal Seat Frame, creating soft under seat glow

38 X 63mm CLS studwork timber, kiln dried, C16 grade, load bearing capacity

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2 coats of marine grade waterproof sealant

18mm thick BB/CC hardwood ply, wall lining, screw fastened

Single Plug Socket, screw fixed to plywood, staff phone charging

Planter Box, 3mm, polyurethane, to contain soil, removable for easy plant maintenance

Montano Cork Flooring, 9.5mm Thickness, Glue Adhesive, Waterproof Sealant Top

Image: Staff Garden Seat Detail. 2D Auto CAD Technical Detail Drawing (NOT TO SCALE)

Acoustic Soundproofing, Rubber Sheet, Noise Reduction to quiet space beneath, 20mm thickness

good company Library Project

Gracemount Mansion, Edinburgh ECA, YR3, 2025

Good Company is a community board game library and social space rooted in the idea of preservation.

Traditionally, libraries were conceived as places to keep their contents safe — archives against the passage of time. Good Company reinterprets this role for the present, asking what it might mean to preserve not objects, but human connection itself.

In a world of growing technological mediation, loneliness is becoming a quiet epidemic. Good Company responds by creating a space that encourages less screen time and more time spent in the company of others, through play, conversation, and shared experience.

Situated at Gracemount, home to Scotland’s first and longest-running community centre, the concept is grounded in a site with a deep history of bringing people together. That continuity felt not just fitting, but necessary.

Image: 2D Section Drawing, Auto CAD, Photoshop Rendered (NOT TO SCALE)

Concept Inspiration/Development Games as a design language

The Game Room

The Game Room retains as much of the original Georgian character as possible, the cornicing, panelling, and fireplace remain largely untouched. Furniture is entirely flexible, with no fixed pieces, allowing the space to adapt for group game tournaments, private hire, or community events. The architecture preserves the past; the programme responds to the present.

Image: 2D Elevation, Auto CAD (NOT TO SCALE)

The Game Room

Main Library

3D Project Renders - Sketch Up, Vray, Photoshop

Group Game Play