Hi, my name is Vanelle Richards, and I am an Interior Designer currently working in workplace design, designing office spaces for businesses in the corporate and public sector.
I hold a master’s degree in Interior and Spatial Design from the University of the Arts London, and also completed my Bachelor’s degree in Interior Architecture and Design at the University of Portsmouth.
My passion for interior design started when I noticed I had a natural interest in interior spaces; analysing them from floor to ceiling, and really paying attention to the small details, layout and design schemes and concepts. I often found myself taking mental notes of what Iiked about the space, or what I would change if I were to designing it myself. I love discovering unique spaces, especially when travelling, this all led me to choose the career that I am now pursuing.
I have loved growing to understand my own interestes and design style within the world of interiors as I have progressed in my career as a designer, and this has only deepened my passion for the industry. Therefore, I am highly apreciative of opportunities and environments that allow me to work within a passionate, diverse and skilled team where I can not only contribute the knowledge and skills that I have gained from my experience, but also learn and be inspired by others.
I hope you enjoy the work shown in this portfolio, and the development of my work over the years.
SUCCESSFUL PITCH WORK
The project plan renders showcased on this page are schemes that I had the opportunity to work on and were created for project pitches based in the UK and the Netherlands, both of which were won by our practice. My role in these pitches was to brainstorm improved office layouts, including the additional spaces listed in the brief with my team, and translate this into Revit, applying materials also to create the plans and axos shown here which were rendered using Enscape.
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3 - Engineer’s Desk
4 - Waiting Area/ Banquette Seating
5 - Exit Feedback Kiosk
6 - Engineers’ Office
7 - Refreshment Zone
IT HUB PROJECT
A quick, smaller scale, independant project I worked on was an IT Hub update project based in Indonesia. I worked on creating a scheme for this space that is located within one of our existing projects for one of our bigger creative agency clients. The brief was to update the exisiting IT Hub to comply with the companies updated IT Hub space requirements. The plans presented here show the design intent for the space, featuring the various components required, and above is the look and feel that I put together to create a destination by giving the space it’s own identity, whilst insuring that it tied in with the existing look and feel in the rest of the office space.
INVESTMENT FIRM OFFICE PROJECT RENDERS
One of the first projects that I assisted on in my professional career was the project shown for an investment firm. I worked on creating material renders for an office space plan that had been approved by the client. The aim was to create visuals that clearly communicated the material and colour palette intent for the space, as the client was having some difficulty visualing how the proposed material palette would translate into the physical space. This was one of my very first Enscape tasks which helped to develop my knowledge and skills in Revit quite rapidly early on.
INSURANCE COMPANY OFFICE PROJECT
The first project that I was resourced on in my professional career was for an insurance company, which I joined at the beginning of RIBA stage 3 (spatial coordination). My input in this project included editing plan options in response to client feedback, modelling Revit families and applying materials to create rendered axo views, as shown, putting together material palettes and design presentations for design team meetings, and assiting with CAD drawings to issue out drawing packs for review.
CREATIVE AGENCY OFFICE RELOCATION PROJECT
To further showcase my space planning abilities in Revit, as well as rendering abilities, to the right is shown a relocation project that I worked on closely with our strategy team to ensure that the companies headcount was supported for their reported show up rates in a new space that they were planning to move to. As well as supporting their numbers, we had to factor in creative spaces that they required, as well as client facing spaces and meeting rooms.
FROM THE SOUL
My Master’s project, From the Soul aimed to break down the barriers that exclude Liberians from the conversation and representation of African culture and black history in the UK. Liberia brings its own unique history and character to the African diaspora community, and deserves to be celebrated and acknowledged just like the many other cultures that are present in our society.
We often tend to understand or relate to others better having experienced something emotionally or physically ourselves, these emotions help us to better understand an event or situation as we may have been in that position ourselves. For this reason this project used sensory elements such as visuals, colour, music, sound, materials and textures, which will allowed me to create an immersive experience that aimed to ‘transport’ users to Liberia and allow them to physically and emotionally experience and have better understanding of the history and culture.
This sketch and diagram show my initial ideas for the design, layout and content of the proposed spaces. I wanted each space to tell a story of an event or significant element of Liberian history and culture, and run almost like a timeline throughout the structure to create a clear understanding of the country and how it came to be.
The idea of having circular spaces was inspired by the Palaver Hut, a style of architecture unique to traditional Liberian communities.
FINAL FLOOR PLAN
This floorplan shows the layout of my proposed space, and the flow between each of the rooms documenting my project concepts.
LEGEND: 1 - Reception
2 - Staff Room
3 - Founding Liberia
4 - Liberia Gains its Independance
5 - Indigenous Liberians
6 - Americo-Liberians
7 - First Liberian Civil War
8 - Second Liberian Civil War
9 - Life Post War - The Aftermath
10 - This is Liberia
11 - Liberia Today
12 - Storage Space
13 - Toilets
THE SITE
I chose the Jubilee Gardens as my proposed site, as I wanted to locate my project in a space within an area known for its cultural community in central London, and that also has a high level of pedestrian activity.
This location was important to my project as culture plays an important, if not the main rolein my project, therefore the surrounding environment would be relevant to my project.
This view shows what my project would look like from above on the proposed site, Jubilee Gardens. The project will sit in the central grass area of the park, still leaving plenty of grass space around for members of the public. From this view the thatched roofs inspired by the Palaver Huts can be seen.
RENDERED SECTIONS
These renders depict three of my proposed spaces; from left to right, the founding of Liberia, Indegenious Liberians, and Americo-Liberians.
As seen in each of these renders, the use of coloured lighting, textures, photographs and cultural artefacts and elements have been used to enhance to environment, mood, and atmosphere that I have aimed to create in each space, and to emphasise and tell the stories of the themes within each space.
The interior design of each space has also been taken into consideration, so that is relevant to the time period and theme represented within each space, and I made this to work within the circular Pavaler Hut inspired design of the space.
INTERIOR MAJOR PROJECT
For my final year design project, we were tasked with choosing an issue, and creating a space to support or help the issue within one of the six buildings we could choose from. The issue I chose was social inequility, and my aim was to create a studio space where people could express themselves. The building I chose was Treadgolds, an old steel and iron merchant located in Portsmouth. At the beginning of this project we were asked to create collages to represent the atmosphere of our proposed space, the atmosphere of the site and the atmosphere of the building. These collages can be seen here.
Continuing with my final year design project, here I have shown the adjacency diagrams demostrating the uses that I planned for the space, my models of the Treadgolds building, and an experience mapping diagram showing the potential experience a user could have within the space.
NARRATIVE + PLAY PAVILION PROJECT
For my Space, Design and Atmopshere module, we had to design a temporary pavilion, inspired by a story set in the area where our pavilion would be located, and the structure would have to introduce the idea of play for both adults and children, into an outdoor space. Shown in the middle to the right are the concept models and skecthes that we created, and that were inspired by our precedents, the 2015 Serpentine Pavilion, and the Numen Tape Installation. These concepts are what we used to reach our final design idea.
SECTIONS
ATMOSPHERIC IMAGE
SPIRALLING TUBES - DAYTIME
ATMOSPHERIC IMAGE
CENTRAL TUBE - NIGHT-TIME
ATMOSPHERIC IMAGE
NIGHT-TIME
Shown to the far left are the rendered plans and sections of our pavilion based on the story of Zell and the Golden Thread, set in Portsmouth. These rendered plans and sections were created using SketchUp, Illustrator and Photoshop.
Shown both to the right and above are the renders of my pavilion design showing the whole structure at night, and the views of the internal space; these renders were created using SketchUp, Vray and Photoshop.
BIDBOROUGH SHOWHOUSE PROJECT
Whilst on placement at Sable Interiors, I was given a range of design projects to work on and contribute to, and I was often given the task of drawing up floorplans and space planning. For this project located in Bidborough, I had to space plan three floors of this newly built apartment for the clients showhouse. The spaces included a living and dining area, bedrooms, a home cinema, bathrooms and an office space. The lower ground floor is shown to the left, with the living and dining area, and home cinema.
CONCEPT PLAN
CONCEPT PLAN
READING SHOWHOUSE PROJECT
I was given another showhouse project, this time located in Reading, that I had space plan for also. This was a slightly smaller project, and the apartment consisted of an open plan kitchen, dining and living area, along with three bedrooms and two bathrooms. A section of the showhouse floorplan is shown to the right, which shows the open plan kitchen, dining, and living area.
10 - FIRST FLOOR PLAN
HOUSE
KINGSTON PLAN
HOUSE 10 - GROUND FLOOR PLAN
KINGSTON SHOWHOUSE PROJECT
Continuing for the Kingston showhouse project, I worked alongside my manager to create design schemes and moodboards for each room of the project to present to the client. Shown below are the design schemes with fabrics, furniture and finishes for the kitchen/ family area, front drawing room and master bedroom.
Also for the Kingston showhouse project, the moodboards and design schemes with the chosen fabrics, furniture and finishes for bedroom 2, 3 and 4 on the first and second floors.
BASTION 6 PROJECT
Bastion 6 is a historic building that had many different uses throughout the first world war, and is now used as a WW1 Rememberance Center/ Museum. For this design project we were given a schedule of accommodation by the owners of the center, whilst focusing on a specific aspect of the war. For my chosen topic I decided to focus on propaganda and the boy soliders of the first world war.
Using our Bastion 6 project designs, ouor Representation and Communication unit encouraged us to utilise our skills and knowledge of design software to create technical, atmospheric, analytical axonometric drawings of our design. Therefore i was able to create these various types of drawings shown (to the far left) using AutoCAD, SketchUp, and Photoshop.
BRUNEL HOUSE PROJECT
Brunel House, and old office building located in Portsmouth, was the building that we were given for our second design porject of the year, to design cluster flat living for. Along with site and building analysis, we also had to focus on one flat within the whole building (as the design of the flat would be replicated throughout most of the building) and create up to five different personas to base our design around. The poster to the far right shows my plan for the layout of the building, the brainstorming of my concept design ideas, and also the concept models that I used to inform my final design idea.
During the process of the Brunel House project, I decided to teach myself how to use a design software that I was unfamiliar with, therefore to create the floorplans, sections, exploded axonometric view (shown on the second poster from the right), and the renders (shown above and to the right) I used a software called Revit.
86 CASTLE ROAD
For my first design unit project of my university course, we were given the task of selecting a build that we found interesting in a specific area of Southsea, We were then taked with measuring and ‘guestimating’ some of the measurements of the building. Once we had studied the facade of the building and photographed it, we then had to present the building through the mediums of a line pencil drawing, a line pen drawing, and a coloured hand drawing.
AUTOPSY PROJECT
The Autopsy project, another group task in which we were allocated a famous building which we had to research, analyse and create a scale model of whilst recording the process. We were given then Eames House, which for the model we had to divide it between us and create a section of it individually, to form the full house model when it was put together. Therefore my partner and I divided the building lengthways to each create half of the building.
COFFEE + CO-WORKING
PROJECT
The Coffee and Co-working project was based in an derelict printing and stationary shop situated on Albert Road in Portsmouth. The task of the project was to carrying out the site analysis for the chosen building, and create a design for the counter and interior space. We had to document the design process aliong with the concpet development through floorplans, sections, drawings, and photographs.
