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LPA Design Studio, a multi-discipline firm working out of six studios in California and Texas, has long had . We recently spoke with LPA’s Design Director Rick D’Amato, FAIA, LEED AP, about LPA’s commitment to sustainable interior design.

What is LPA’s approach to sustainable interior design?

Rick D’Amato: Sustainable design has been in our DNA since long before benchmarking came along with the first LEED-certified buildings in the late ‘90s. We had already been trying to design sustainable interiors before then, which was difficult, especially with regard to materiality, because selections were extremely limited.

Over the years, we’ve developed a research-driven model that focuses on sustainability. Now, we’re looking to become much more aggressive, especially regarding carbon neutrality. We’re also expanding our definition of what sustainability means in interior design. It’s not just about materiality, daylighting, or biophilia. It's about the way we approach the design itself. You can have a beautiful space that utilizes sustainable materials, but if it's not getting used, then it's failed.

What advice do you have for firms that want to make their interior designs more sustainable?

RD: There are some pitfalls that I see firms fall into. For example, too often, interior design is layered on at the tail end of a project, which makes it much more difficult. At LPA, we take a holistic, collaborative approach to design, involving engineers, landscape architects, and interior designers at the earliest stages of the process.

How do your interior designers make informed choices about materials?

RD: Our Irvine studio has an extensive materials library, with data on carpets, tiles, textiles, wall coverings, and countertops. We have a full-time materials resource librarian who tracks manufacturers’ Environmental Product Declarations [EPDs] and Health Product Declarations [HPDs]. She’s going through our entire library—not just interior materials, but also landscape and architecture materials. She’s making sure that all library materials meet a certain sustainable quotient. In addition, we have a color-coded system and are developing our own “worst in class” red list. These are materials we will not show to a client unless they specifically request them. It’s almost like a library within a library.

To what extent do your interior designers rely on a manufacturer’s representations about its products?

RD: Our librarian starts with the manufacturer's representations and does a lot more research on them. We make sure we take that extra step, especially with regard to carbon footprint. Very few manufacturers are discussing carbon emissions right now, and we tell them that if they provide that information, then we're more likely to use their materials.

A universal labeling system and industry certifications would also help. I’d love to see LPA create an interiors checklist or benchmarking system for internal use that eventually could be used industry-wide. I think there’s a serious need there. Smaller practitioners just don’t have the time or resources to really dive into whether they’re making the right choices with regard to carbon footprint or to fully understand what it takes to design a sustainable interior.

How do you get stakeholder buy-in for low-carbon projects?

RD: LPA takes an integrated, multi-discipline approach to every project, regardless of whether we are doing all the design or working with outside consultants. We try to get everybody around the table and at least get everybody's heads in the right space in terms of sustainability before we even start.

When it comes to buy-in for smart sustainable design, it’s a lot easier in the public, education, or healthcare realms than it is for workplace or residential clients. With the public client, we can say, “This is a smarter choice for the environment, this is going to maintain longer, this is going to fit with your environmental narrative.” And the larger private entities we work with have bigger machines that can absorb costs more readily and tend to get more value, such as recruitment, retention, and PR, out of their sustainability efforts.

Smaller clients typically have a very different set of priorities. If it’s not an integral part of their narrative, it’s harder to layer our philosophy on top of that. So it's about making sure that the selections we make also meet their requirements. It’s our job as the experts to help them achieve their goals. If there are limitations that could prevent them from achieving their goals in one way, we look for tradeoffs that will facilitate success in other ways.

There are new materials, new products, and new studies coming out every day. It’s a constantly evolving process, and accordingly, our materials libraries should be constantly evolving.

Metropolis magazine held a series of with LPA and other design and sustainability leaders to develop strategies for designing low-carbon interior spaces. Can you tell us about that?

RD: That was probably when our eyes were really opened to the importance of materiality, the importance of the products that we select, and the impact interior design can have on a building’s carbon footprint. It involved some of the smartest people I’ve ever talked to. We looked at different aspects of materials and how they affected design.

We’re starting to see the practical application of some of the things we studied. And a lot of our findings from just two or three years ago have already started to evolve. Design needs to evolve constantly, and recognizing this is something that makes Metropolis so good at what they do. There are new materials, new products, and new studies coming out every day. It’s a constantly evolving process, and accordingly, our materials libraries should be constantly evolving. We continually investigate what we do and what we can do better.

How does LPA’s research component help you make design decisions?

RD: Our in-house research team, LPA Sustainability and Applied Research, was added in 2016 to improve the evaluation of performance and to develop actionable research. I’m now integrating the research team into the in-depth interviews we conduct with our clients’ staffs. Our researchers can take a third-party view and ask, “Is there a need for this? Can the client work more effectively?” We just went through a similar process with our own studio expansions and moves in San Jose and San Diego. It’s been great because we’ve been learning from ourselves.

As part of the design community, I think we need to understand that we are in a renaissance. What we do is more important than it's ever been, but we've also realized that we cannot do this alone anymore. It's about understanding the research and learning how companies work, how hospitals work, how high schools work, about really understanding how we can design better and smarter. We’re seeing a marriage between the end user and the designer. It's exciting, and it’s a great time to be a designer.