About Our Interior Design Studio
Why We Started.
Andy started out on the drawing board. For years he worked on the parts of a building you never see: as a building services coordinator on major commercial projects, his job was drafting and 3D modelling the heating, ventilation, air conditioning, water and drainage systems, so that every service could be manufactured and then installed on site without clashing. The drawings he produced had to communicate that clearly to everyone involved, from the design engineers to the trades installing on site. Getting them right meant the problems were solved on paper, and the risk taken out of the build, long before anyone reached site. He trained in architectural technology at the University of Derby, ran his own practice, and spent over twenty years on the technical side of buildings, including the New Street Station redevelopment and the Queen Elizabeth II Hospital, both in Birmingham.
Joe’s world was people and targets. As an account manager for a packaging company, she looked after big accounts and bigger budgets, hitting demanding deadlines and saving her clients money as she went. Her real skill was reading people: listening closely to what someone actually needed, then making sure they got it, whether that meant sourcing something that already existed or having it made bespoke to their brief. She loves a challenge, she’s a natural problem solver, and loves helping people, so nothing is ever too much trouble.
When our son arrived in 2014, we both wanted a different kind of working life: work we genuinely cared about, and room for a young family. So in 2015 we started Chapter Seven Design, an interior design studio run by the two of us, where Andy’s read of a building meets Joe’s knack for keeping a big project on track.
The name comes from the seventh chapter of Francis D K Ching’s Form, Space and Order, the first book Andy was asked to read at university. It has been a point of reference ever since. We are registered with the SBID.
Meet Us.
ANDY SMITH
Andy walks into every building looking up. It’s a habit from years in building services. Then he checks the floor. By the time most people have noticed the room, Andy has read the building.
It carries through into his design work. He cares about things most people would let go: the line of a shadow gap, the way a handle sits in the hand, whether a piece of joinery looks right from across the room as well as up close. Clients tend to notice it most after the project is finished, when they catch themselves looking at things they would never normally look at twice.
CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Joe Smith
Joe is a good listener, and she likes to know who she is working with. By the second meeting she usually knows how you take your coffee, who in your family will have an opinion on the kitchen, and what you actually meant when you said something was "fine."
The rest of her work is the steady, organised business of holding a long project together. The timeline. The suppliers. The hundreds of small decisions a renovation throws up. She also takes real pleasure in the sourcing, finding the right piece, from the right manufacturer, for the right room. When clients tell us afterwards that the whole thing felt easier than they expected, it is because of her.
BUSINESS DIRECTOR