Charlotte Taylor: drawing the balance between fiction and structure
Between the digital and the built, Charlotte Taylor moves through worlds that mirror and inform each other — where light, weight, and narrative define how we inhabit space
This conversation is part of Lampoon’s column on Talent, Taste, and Transformation curated by Anouk Jans.
AJ: Whose work excites you right now — voices that feel like they’re shaping the future of design?
CT: “Many women are expanding the language of design through collaboration and exchange. Practices such as Rooms Studio, Pauline Leprince, and Pia Schiele work across disciplines, building open systems of dialogue. Their process suggests a more porous way of making.”
AJ: How do you approach collaboration — what makes someone the right fit for your world?
CT: “Collaboration begins with intuition. There’s an immediate sense of alignment. The right fit grows from shared curiosity and the desire to explore rather than finish. The process matters more than the result. I connect with people who stay present in moments when ideas are still forming.”
AJ: Are you more drawn to established names or emerging creatives who bring something unexpected?
CT: “There’s no separation. Surprise can appear at any point in a career. What matters is perspective — when a practice moves with its own rhythm, independent of scale or recognition.”
AJ: How would you define your taste today — and how has it shifted since you started?
CT: “My focus has moved from image to atmosphere. Early on, form and composition led the way. Now I pay attention to how something holds space, how light interacts with material. I leave more room for imperfection and tension.”
AJ: What influences taste more in 2025: personal instinct, digital culture, or collective mood?
CT: “All three operate as one. What we absorb online shapes instinct, and shared mood flows back through digital space.”
AJ: Has working in both digital and physical space changed your idea of what’s beautiful or essential?
CT: “Working across both clarified the balance between ideal and integral. The digital invites speculation; the physical brings accountability.”
AJ: Do you think taste still belongs to individuals, or is it now shaped by algorithms and feeds?
CT: “Taste remains personal, yet it quickly mirrors and refracts through systems of distribution. Individuality circulates until it becomes pattern.”
AJ: You move between digital design and architecture — how do you see those two worlds transforming each other?
CT: “They operate in dialogue. The digital allows for experimentation and narrative play; architecture anchors those explorations in scale and material. Each sharpens the other’s awareness.”
AJ: Do digital environments change how we value physical ones?
CT: “Yes. Immersion in digital space creates a pull toward the tactile. We return to surfaces that carry history, weight, and irregularity.”
AJ: What transformations in design feel most relevant now — material innovation, new aesthetics, or cultural shifts?
CT: “Cultural shifts carry the deepest change. Materials evolve constantly, but mindsets shift slower. Designers are re-entering collective thinking, reworking older values of empathy and shared authorship.”
AJ: If you imagine the spaces we’ll inhabit in 2035, what do they look and feel like?
CT: “Spaces will adapt more fluidly to how we live. Design will follow movement rather than prescribe behavior.”
AJ: Do you see transformation in your work as about speed, or about slowing down and refining?
CT: “Slowing down. Connection appears when there’s time to listen — to adjust rather than accelerate.”
AJ: Do you see your projects as escape, reflection, or blueprint for how we could live?
CT: “All three. Each begins in observation, moves through speculation, and lands as a possible way of being.”
AJ: What role do memory and nostalgia play in building future visions?
CT: “Memory shapes every projection. The future grows from past frameworks seen from another angle. Nothing starts from zero.”
AJ: If you weren’t designing spaces, how else would you channel your vision for tomorrow?
CT: “Through physics — another language for space, movement, and energy. Both ask how systems behave and interact.”
AJ: What kind of transformation do you hope your work sparks in the people experiencing it?
CT: “A pause. A widening of perception. Awareness of rhythm, temperature, distance. Presence.”
