PROFILE: JUSTINE HOUSELEY

In the twelfth grade, when asked who her favourite designer was for the Ryerson School of Interior Design (RSID) entrance interview, Justine Houseley responded with the most prestigious name in design she knew: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Ask her now, in her fourth year of the program, and she'll say she has no favourite, but American architect and interior designer Frank Lloyd Wright comes pretty close.

It's Wright's sense of eccentric design that Houseley can relate to. Having moved to Toronto last year, Houseley and her two roommates call blue linoleum floors, white walls, cheesy leafy curtains and a total of 20 faux sheepskin rugs covering old couches their eclectic and eccentric home.

On a frigid December morning, Houseley arrives at a Balzac's minutes from her townhouse. Wearing a casual black hoodie, sweatpants and boots to meet me for an interview, she apologizes immediately with a smile, "I was just cleaning my house." Sitting upright in the café's rattan French bistro chair she explains how she gradually overcame the pressure to conform to popular design aesthetics. Minimalism remains the popular style of choice but Houseley admits that designing with an aesthetic in mind made her feel like she wasn't deigning honestly. During her third year at Ryerson, she started to recognize the natural process she follows when designing.   

Her design process throws the pressure of being an original designer out the window and instead focuses on precedent-based problem solving. "Everything's been done," she says. Instead of focusing on the originality of a design, Houseley finds a problem, rules out all existing solutions to figure out why they didn't work, and then drafts her design. Finding a solution from a problem will naturally make a design unique, she says.

The first time Houseley put this process to work was for the Umbra competition in collaboration with Ryerson in April of 2016, for which she designed a teapot. "There's no teapot that deals with arthritis or motor issues," she says, adding that drinking tea is a universal ritual. Her teapot, titled "camellia", was designed to reduce wrist tension when pouring tea. "I want to do something that stands for a purpose or betters people's lives, and not only specific people," she says. The round glass teapot has a short spout and features a steel handle, a stainless steel tea infuser and a silicone rubber lid. A professional glassblower blew the prototype body of the teapot out of regular glass, while the intended design was for a double-walled glass body that users can touch while the tea is hot.

Houseley's idea wasn't met with much interest by Umbra's CEO at first. "’Umbra doesn't need a teapot,’ is what he initially said,” recalls Houseley. But the teapot eventually won her second place in the competition. She plans to take glassblowing classes after graduating and create a second prototype from double-paned basilica glass, a lighter more durable glass.

This 21-year-old is only getting started. She's dreaming of a multi-disciplinary design firm that houses multiple design disciplines like architecture, industrial, graphic and even fashion design for her future practice. "Brands go to all these different firms to complete projects, but why not just go to one?" Houseley says. Though different from traditional firms, this idea doesn't come without its own set of hurdles, "It's going to take time to get there because there are so many stigmas between disciplines," says Houseley. With a portfolio of various design projects ranging from product and interior design, to website design and branding, Houseley's work is just as multi-disciplinary as her philosophy.

Houseley is one of five siblings who was born and raised in suburban Pickering, Ont., an old but charming city she compares to the song The Suburbs by Arcade Fire. Houseley's mother, an interior designer and RSID grad from the '80s, greatly influenced her decision to pick design over music. "My mom had been talking to me about RSID for so long I think I had known I wanted to go there since elementary school," she says. At Dunbarton High School she was heavily involved in extracurricular activities like musical theatre and had her own band called Mykonos. To this day she still dreams of Broadway, but for now gets her fix by singing folk songs at coffee shops with her roommates.

From countless sleepless nights in the Ryerson interior design studio to designing spaces alongside industry leaders for clients, Houseley has a versatile approach to design, having dabbled in architecture, interior, industrial, product and graphic design. Her sources of inspiration range from books, podcasts and Pinterest to reflections on her own life and on those around her. "I think it's really important to not just look at interior spaces and architecture, but look at fashion and graphics."

Houseley is now a graphics executive for the 2017 RSID year end show, after having been a member of the RSID course union in her first and second year. She's working with new design disciplines like website design and branding but says the experience has ultimately taught her how to work as part of a professional team at Design Agency, a Toronto-based design firm.

In February of 2016, Houseley's first project as an intern at Design Agency was to design the bathroom of the new Danforth location of the restaurant chain Nando's. She designed the space according to plans but went beyond by adding a veneered concrete wall edged with a feature pattern made from wood tiles, which was eventually used throughout the restaurant. "I was very hungry to do more creative work," she admits.

For the restaurant's entrance she also designed a repetitive four by four ft. interior wood tiling pattern that divides into an eight by eight inch grid that further breaks down into triangles and geometric shapes with spots of colour that appear like exposed wood. Houseley says the tile design was symbolic of the inspiration behind the rest of the entrance design. Since Nando's is a restaurant chain originating in South Africa, the project's inspiration was the region's colourful houses. "Houses in South Africa are extremely colourful but they still have that iconic look of a house," says Houseley. Due for completion in early 2017, Houseley says she'll definitely be visiting the space when it opens.

"I'm used to things not really being made after I design something because that's the nature of school, so it was the first awe-inspiring moment of seeing someone take what I had pitched and move forward with it to become a reality."

Coincidentally, Houseley's first studio project at Ryerson in first year was to design a bathroom. "Step one at Ryerson was the bathroom, and it's just funny that step one at Design Agency was the bathroom." Reminiscing about her time at RSID, Houseley explains how time constraints in class forced her to turn to self-teaching ― what she now says is a crucial skill to have in the design industry. "Understanding actual finishes rather than Googling just concrete is important," she says. Houseley has also previously interned for Circle Design Inc. and Stephenson Design Associates, where she was limited to smaller tasks like cap revisions and rendering sketches.

Houseley's ambitious attitude is what persuaded her to design a makerspace ― a resource-filled space for creators ― for a Faculty of Communication and Design student residence competition over winter break in her third year. She and a friend competed against each other and designed their own submissions for the competition. Titled "intermission", Houseley's final design was a meditative space that encouraged students to de-stress and return to tasks with a productive attitude. Although the space allowed for personalized activities, Houseley and her friend only came to know both their designs weren't actually makerspaces when they tried to submit the projects. The committee told them, "'That's not a makerspace, that's an un-makerspace'," recalls Houseley with a laugh.

Every designer needs a break to unwind from time to time. For Houseley that means plenty of soul and jazz music, video games like World of Warcraft and good company. She says sometimes it's important to put yourself first and your work second, "make time to go out and make time to have fun.