The Hidden Truth About Office Design Nobody's Talking About: Ellie Mumford on Mix 30 Under 30 Series

0:00But this one room that I don't know just speaks to me personally and it's almost based around music and it has like a cork floor, acoustic panels on the wall but then there's loads of vinyl on the wall and there's a record player and it's just so lovely to sit in a meeting and put the record player on and just kind of have a more kind of chilled space. It's really cool, I love it. But again I'm old school so I really loved the vinyl and record player. That was such a nice touch. And all of the meeting rooms kind of cater to the idea that all the spaces are really flexible so you can choose the space dependent on what you want to show to a client or how you feel that day.

0:35They've done a brilliant job. I love going to work, literally. It's so nice to go into that office. Hello and welcome to another episode of Space by Stansons. Today I'm chatting to Ellie Mumford. I sometimes get your name wrong. We won't talk about that. It would just be like about a 40 minute episode and we talk about just that. um ellie mountford from modus and you're not just a designer you are a senior creative senior creative you should put a french on that shouldn't we to make it more fancy senior creative yeah um yeah from modus so i'm really i'm loving it because i'm talking to 30 under 30 and it's just like next gen isn't it and like finding out what they're thinking what they're doing so definitely jump in and subscribe uh we really want to like get more of these voices through the door So it's a big thing.

1:25Like, it's great. So welcome, Ellie. Thank you for coming on the show. Thank you. Thank you for having me. You're very welcome. So 30 Under 30, what happened? Did you go ballistic? Did you know you were going to get nominated? I didn't know I was nominated. And I was quite shocked when I did have a little text to say that I'd been shortlisted and I was part of this kind of amazing pool of talent. So that was really wonderful. On the night of 13 to 30, I did drink quite a lot of champagne. Is that like, do you all go to a social, you mean? Yeah. Or just the night that you heard? No, the night that, I think I just had a glass of wine and a nice meal the night that I heard at home with my boyfriend.

2:09I think that was about it. But the night that we went to celebrate with Mix and you got your little award and everything. um I did drink a few too many champagnes for sure and it was really nice you got to meet those people in the industry and then afterwards went out and had a few drinks and kind of celebrated which was nice it was really fun oh that's cool and did you who did tell first I think I told my boyfriend first um and he's always very supportive and yeah he was super happy um and then I told my like family group chat and then I was a little bit sheepish about kind of telling friends as well because I was quite British about the whole scenario.

2:50What's that mean? Well, just, you know, like you don't like... Get a bit... We get a bit embarrassed about just saying that we've done something positive, I think. Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. So eventually I did and it was very cute and all my friends are really nice and supportive about, you know, our careers. We meet up a lot and probably talk about what we're doing in life and especially work kind of takes precedent in all of those conversations. So they always hear about everything that's going on. It's nice to tell them about that. Yeah. Okay. No, that's cool. And did your boyfriend even know or makes that young that he was?

3:27Or did you have to explain it to him? I had to explain. Yeah. But he's doing a PhD and he's in science rather than in the design world. So we are quite different in that respect. Yeah, he'll be different. He's like highly intelligent. yeah it's brilliant but it's nice because he has um an interest as well in interior design and design itself and he loves art and everything as well so I think that's why we're a good a good match um but I did have to slightly explain what was going on they do they do say opposites attract they do exactly I mean cool and what are you working on um your your modus yeah yeah and what is there anything that you're working on that you particularly like feel like you're shaping with like how you see the future you're doing differently or yeah I think I mean I'm working on a few different projects at the moment and all the all of the kind of clientele are quite different every single one of them and they're from different industries but the main kind of thing that I see on every single project at the moment is that it is great to kind of build a project and it looks amazing look and feel looks great but if you haven't got that that space plan that functions correctly and works with the brief and what the client has requested it's just never going to work and down the line so actually kind of finalizing that brief with the client and making sure that functionality is at the forefront of the design is the one thing that I'm seeing kind of going forward projects we should be trying to think about rather than just you know how pretty it all looks as well and you actually raise it is a point I do hear a point that runs through my head quite a bit like not just a pretty space but like yeah it's going to work it's going to help people be their best selves and unlock potential and da da da da da but I do feel it's quite unfair the level of responsibility on designers now because they're almost turning into like psychologists they've got to get inside their heads of all these different people that are used in the space they've got to be experts in sustainability and know where the materials have come from and all this gibberish i mean not bad gibberish but no but it's it is crazy as a designer you know i signed up a few years ago now to be a senior designer and um to be a designer and then all of a sudden i'm talking about sustainability acoustics building control regs fire regulations and and then you've got to be a technical designer then you've got to make sure that things look good and and then you've got a pitch well and then you've got to talk well as well so all of those things like that's that's kind of what it takes to to be a designer in our industry and you know it's it is difficult to kind of keep up with all of those things and make sure that you're aligned but I certainly try my best yeah I think I've got my fingers in a lot of pies right now how do you think that would change going forwards or do you not see it changing do you Is it just getting more?

6:33I think it is difficult because when you talk to clients, they are really relying on you to create a design that is going to work on all of those bases. But I think what we need to do going forward is make sure that we have the right partners to rely on to give us that support. Because naturally one person can't, I mean, amazing if they can, but have the knowledge of every single discipline that I just mentioned and so making sure that the designers are aware of these other partners that they can work with so they can you know kind of essentially just give out you know that discipline and just say look I need your help on this which is kind of like we wouldn't perhaps ask you about your acoustics and how does this curtain work in this space and then it kind of takes the pressure off a little bit but I think we need to start embracing all of those different people instead I hope I've made myself clear no no no I totally get it like I do I do agree with you like back in the day there was like this overarching kind of like architect that dealt with it but as time goes on like there's more and more collaborations and more and more like experts coming in to a project rather than it just being one person because that we're now got like neurodiversity experts we now got like accessibility experts exactly um but yeah I I do think that suddenly that this project there's so much more is coming out of them so so much more needs to go into them so it can't be one person anymore that's where you're that's where I think that I'm picking up about partners yeah exactly yeah exactly right and um I really like that yeah again we have to think about the neurodiversity piece as well that is mentioned a lot more frequently on projects going forward um and that's difficult because that means that i need to go away and and teach myself about um all of those things and um it's difficult when you've got a full workload as well do you just do it on chat gbt or how do you find out oh completely it's all ai all the way no i think it is a good source to kind of find out um what's going on because you want to make sure that you're designing for everyone in mind um and chat chupati is a great tool for that um but i'm also i don't know ai scares me a little bit it's scary how good it is basically terrifies me okay like i thought like gen z were all in it and doing it and well like i was saying to you idiot i i feel i'm on the cusp of millennial and gen z okay and i sometimes feel like i relate more to the millennials because my it is my it is not brilliant i'll hold my hands up you just get a partner to do it exactly the av specialists there we go that's what they do yeah no i'm really bad i'm like an old person i just i'm not good on my phone like people will vouch for this i'm i'm sure so I just get the help from everyone else instead but it is actually it's not so shocking though in the sense that I do think that's how the world's going it's like not being able to do everything or like being like but just being able to connect people network kind of bring stuff together build a community yeah you know what I mean but do you feel though like we have all these means to communicate with everyone.

10:07So that does mean that people expect, it means like the communication is always there, it's always present. And that does pose like a little bit of a stress on people when, you know, you're trying to like maybe just get a piece of work done and people expect you to reply and you're like, hang on a second, but you've got Teams, email, WhatsApp, Messenger. iMessage, yeah. Yeah, it's crazy. Oh yeah, I don't use Slack. is it good no no it is the worst i mean maybe i'm not this is really like not helping anyone sorry slack yeah teams makes complete sense i'm all over it it works on my phone it works on my laptop like everything slack so confusing you can never find a message it's all like done in threads and it's all difficult yeah i've never used it um everywhere i've been i've never used it i like teams i had to use zoom recently and i couldn't figure out how to leave okay i was like bye guys and then i was just big for ages on the call i will leave hang on a second as soon as i found out how oh yeah i can see but and it was like a little man running out a door which was the leaves why doesn't it just say leave and right big red button it's not a little because it's a little I have to do quite a lot of zoom so I have I have been on zoom enough but yeah slack one of our partners uses it so I have to be on it for that and yeah I would quite like to just go super old school pen and paper let's bring back letters done yeah I also I was talking something the other day I was talking um and this is like kind of perfect example but we are so like sort of digital first in so many ways which is kind of cool but actually meeting and talking to someone face to face you get their energy you can read all the micro body language it's probably a fancy word for all of this but I don't know what it is so I'm just explaining and you like kind of vibe off them and if you don't have that like if you're trying to talk to someone over teams or interview someone or pitch or I don't know what talk about training or anything over tea I just find or any kind of digital ways yeah I completely agree I think especially when we meet clients for the first time and it might be on teams for instance it's really difficult to to get across um how passionate you might be or I don't know it's just like about body language isn't it and I feel like it's just so kind of the format is quite rigid regardless of if you have you know different ways you can present on the screen and stuff I completely agree it's always better just to meet in person We've got so many lovely facilities in our office where we can bring in clients and they can have a nice experience with us.

13:00I try and push that as much as possible because it's so much better. You've got a new office, don't you? We've got a new office. Oh, that's cool. What's your favourite space? Oh, my favourite space. Where do I begin? There's a few. We have a really beautiful design studio. It's amazing. It's so nice to work in, get the samples out everywhere. where if you have a client come in, you can sit there and workshop with them. It's really nice. And then we also have this beautiful pitch room too. I don't know if it's called that, but it feels like it should be. It's just really impressive and it gives us all the technology.

13:37I need some training. The technology and also just the space to completely show people how their project could look and immerse them in the design. but then there's one room that I particularly love because all of Viddy has done such an impressive job of the entire design it's beautiful um and there were other designers involved in it as well who are super talented and it's so lovely to walk in every day and see that project um but there's one room that I don't know just speaks to me personally and it's almost based around music and it has like a cork floor and acoustic panels on the wall but then there's loads of vinyl on the wall and there's a record player and it's it's just so lovely to sit in a meeting and and put the record player on and just kind of have a more kind of chilled really space it's really cool i love it but again i'm old school so i really loved the vinyl and the record player I thought that was like such a nice touch yeah and all of the meeting rooms kind of cater to um the idea that like all the spaces are really flexible so you can choose the space dependent on kind of what you want to show to a client or how you feel that day it's um yeah they've done a brilliant job I love going to work literally it's so nice to go into that office it's cool thinking about that office and like everything like how we're going to like how the world is going to evolve like in 2026 next year wow like so 30 years on from there like what do you think it's going to look like what do you think it's going to be different um what like actually modus office um no not just any offices like you're designing yeah what do you think you'll be talking about like you just said i feel like the digital aspect of um design at the moment is at kind of the forefront of what people do because we're so tech heavy day to day on zoom calls on teams calls and that needs to be incorporated into the office um but the thing i'm finding like ever since we've more people are working from home especially and then going into the office on specific days is that those days they really need kind of social meeting spaces a lot more so i'm actually finding when I'm getting a brief that um clients don't want loads of working spaces and desks it's primarily kind of social areas and meeting spaces that are at the forefront of a brief because ultimately those days are where people are going in and they're socializing with the rest of their their team and so yeah trying to find ways to make those spaces work for them and they're really flexible is something that I think is going to come forward um I don't I mean will I be designing in 30 years yeah yeah so it's a long old stint that this is true I hope I am but yeah well I said yes not because you wouldn't have made so much money you would have retired because you probably would have done but there will still be human designers surely it's yes that's more what I was going with a yes.

16:47Not like, yeah, you have to be slugging your gas out because you don't need to pay your mortgage off. Well, it's going that way. I don't want to get political. Yeah, oh yeah, better not. But yeah. Okay, that's... Yeah, I can see that. When you say meeting spaces, I think everyone traditionally thinks of a table of various sizes with chairs and a great big screen. No. So talk to me about meeting space in 30 years' time. Yeah, I had this conversation earlier with a client because we were talking about ways that you can meet up and have a meeting, which seems like it sounds so corporate, doesn't it, when you say it like that?

17:25But it could literally be this kind of setup that we're sat in now, the kind of breacher-style seating. And it doesn't mean that that has to be inside a meeting room with four walls. It could be more open. You could have curtains to zone a space and then open it back up again. um they could be lounge rooms they could be podcast rooms like there's so many different ways that you can kind of control a space that has different means of meeting up with people even the way that you maybe plan a tea point and a breakout space you can do so so there's the flexibility to have almost like these different areas of space where the sound could be controlled in one area so you could have a more informal meeting in one space but then in another space is a little bit more vibrant and buzzy you can sit at a countertop and have a coffee with someone and a quick catch-up those are the types of meeting spaces that I mean it's not that traditional boring little meeting room and I'm sure like people flick up in their head like this table and it's like like lots of chairs and I just think actually there's so many conversations that might need to be had or i feel that people have got such like so much more pressure than they used to have or like what you're saying about digital and like getting whatsapps and everything that's also happening on a personal level so some might get some sad news before you didn't find out until you got home or something like that so you need those spaces like for emotional sort of regulation if you like and either to go and celebrate or to go and have a little cry oh a crying room yeah that'd be quite cool wouldn't it it'd be yellow wouldn't it it definitely would be yellow what a yellow crying room the yellow room would be crying oh right yeah the crying one would be yellow you think so why would you make because it's happy then oh you want to hear them up oh yeah yellow is a like cheerful color what color would you have i recently did a wellness room um which is you know it's for all sorts of different reasons it's more flexible so you could have it for like um a new mum um who's coming to the office and perhaps needs to um they're still breastfeeding so they need to pump um it could be for someone who just needs to go and have a big old cry as well so it's kind of different it was for a different kind of means um but i did it in a really pale pink and then it had some like cute little pink tiles and everything and i thought it was just quite a calming simple room and i I liked it.

20:00Yeah, just a soft pink foil. So it kind of made it, yeah. By the way, I'm loving all these references to curtains you're bringing in. Anyone would think I paid you. What? I'm not getting paid for this? Yeah, obviously, but like extra. Extra on top. Extra sort of ad spos. Yeah, okay, cool. Pink wellness room. I love that though because normally wellness rooms are green. Yeah, I know. I'm fed up of doing green wellness rooms. I'm just saying. Yeah, I just want to change things up a bit. Yeah, I think it's cool. Yeah. I would go yellow, not like bright yellow, not like highlighted yellow. I'd just go like kind of honey, turmeric.

20:38Yeah, I like that. Probably like layer it as well with like maybe some little pops of brighter, but like mostly like just soft. Even like this bleacher seating is like yellow. Yeah, and consider maybe the lighting in that space as well. Perhaps you just dim the lighting a bit as well and you have like floor lamps instead. So like controlling the ambience of the room. So if someone does need to go in there and just have a minute because they have a headache, they can control that as well. And it wouldn't be hard to do. We'd have analog switches. Yeah, well, that's why we speak to the AV specialists and all those people.

21:14Yeah, yeah. Hey, by the way, I do think it does need to get simpler for people. Yeah? Yeah, I do think so. Because it can get a little bit complicated, can't it? Like when you get into a meeting room, there's like a whole thing of switches. And which one do you press first? I know. I know. I mean I'm the designer I'm supposed to know supposed to know about all of this but um I find it difficult as well and I I uh I I always ask someone else to do it too and how do you do the handover to the to the client how do you like induct them and everything like that well usually at the end of a project we'll have a full kind of walk around of the space and they they basically have an induction for all of that so they'll be able to understand exactly how to work their folding wall exactly how to work their new hot water tap and stuff like that um and then i just kind of sit back and watch it unfold and hope that they love it um usually but there's a whole process that goes into the end of a project and making sure that the client is satisfied we never just walk away yeah okay do you think that might change going forward it's like how we induct how we hand over how we leave the client or maybe stay with them we don't leave them yeah i think a lot Now that you've got aftercare teams as well who will deal with a client for, you know, a year after leaving a project, we never just, you know, pack up and go straight away.

22:37We're always their point of contact. I think that's a really crucial part of when they choose who they're working with. Yeah. And that's, you know, something that they have to consider too. so um and you have to check as well sometimes if the project if they're happy with the way things are working because sometimes you can put a meeting room in or something and it's not always um being used as effectively as it could maybe the acoustics need to be slightly changed so there's a level of like day two to consider sometimes and that's why we we hang around waiting a little bit yeah i love it it's great it's i totally get it what's your um you spoke about music what as a as a gen z just about what do you listen to to concentrate to concentrate oh okay when you're trying to like focus um oh god it really it really does change i like i like so i'm got i've got quite an eclectic taste in music i know everyone says that but i really do i like listening to a classical music podcast um classical i'm on a podcast i've i said podcast yeah a classical music playlist yeah i don't know i couldn't name any of the composers or who they are but that apparently i don't know if this is true but it is supposed to help with creativity and getting in the zone i i'll do that but then i'll change up in the afternoon and i'll be listening to eminem or something oh wow it'll just completely change so that can be And then I'm on to Sabrina Carpenter.

24:12Like, I can't put a label on, like, the one thing that makes me concentrate. I think it fully depends on the task I'm doing. But you do listen to music? All the time. All the time. Yeah. I do quite like a podcast as well. Naturally, I listen to this one. Oh, obviously. But I can't actually listen to podcasts when I'm working. Like, talking. Yeah. Especially if you're writing. if I'm writing I can't which is you know I don't do that an awful lot really but I do love the Dish podcast have you heard that one as in food yeah Nick Grimshaw and Angela it's really good it's Waitrose's one isn't it yeah I'm just really interested in their branding bizarrely I find their brand quite clever as in waitrose and their whole magazine food magazine and then they launched dish podcast i just was interested in the brand language and how it went through and they've just recently had a rebrand oh really weird the things i geek out on but yeah that is a bit of a niche geek out i know yeah yeah it's just it's just brand in a big sense it's just branding and how people position themselves that's i find it quite fun but yes so i have seen dish in a short so you like cooking i'm i'm crap oh so that's why you listen to learn i i love food i love eating food what's your guilty pleasure um where do i begin at the moment it's really bad but i'm addicted to leon chicken nuggets gluten-free gluten-free ones they're baked they're not that bad brilliant but it's not it's not a good habit to gain to okay but dish is obviously offering something a bit more elevated yeah yeah oh what do i love that's a bit oh yeah no they basically pick whoever's the guest they go on and angela will cook maybe one of their kind of favorite foods that they kind of like or something that's related to the the guest usually and nick kind of sits back i would be nick i'd just sit back and enjoy and talk too much basically and taste the food yeah but i i think it's so nice it's so personal food's so personal to each person that goes on there and they pair it with a drink and everything as well i think it's lovely i could never do that for someone else because my cooking is abysmal i tried really hard but sometimes it just falls flat on his face the intense there you tried yeah yeah exactly and also doesn't everyone just love a cooking show like yeah i think it's quite calming it's something quite zen about it yeah and i do think it's a little bit like music like it's quite personal there's like all different flavors for different types of moods and it's like i quite like food yeah no so do i it'd be good to have like a food room i know that's at the tea point scrap that cut that that's just called lunch room you know i was just like music room for the meeting room and i was like maybe there's something good could be inspired by food but i don't know if that'd go very well just called lunch room yeah the lunch room basically then you could probably do like a One where people could cook a bit more, like some little Kenwood mixes and things.

27:24Yeah, I feel like we could come up with a concept here for that. Get Mary Berry along. Name from the past. Yeah, I haven't heard that name in a while. She doesn't do a bake-off anymore. No. She hasn't done for years, right? No, she's a little bit older, isn't she? Yeah. I mean, I'm saying that very nicely. I also can't bake either. No. Oh. Mind you. I'm okay. your boyfriend's science and it's basically it's quite scientific isn't it yeah i don't think he's ever baked anything for me maybe i'm gonna have to sort that out right and before we go because i'm conscious of time oh gosh i'm gonna ask you one last question because this is gonna get um this is dropping just before christmas okay oh no what is it what do you do new year's resolutions and what would it be okay i i try and do a bit of a new year's resolution like i'll write a note on my phone and you know that's kind of it try and put it into the ether a bit it never really works out how long are we talking end of jan end of march oh god end of jan i'm rubbish i i really need to have whenever i do anything i really need to have a goal to work towards at the end i need something that's going to put a bit of pressure on me otherwise I just don't perform if I say I'm going to just go running it I it doesn't work out like that I really need to have something at the end like a marathon doing a marathon as well yeah going to Bali yeah well exactly I had a holiday recently and I was I went to Bali which was amazing so beautiful um and I worked really hard going to the gym and training and trying to be good with my food and since I've been back well it's been chicken nuggets all the way of course it has then we all would have that like little like drop off when you come back from holiday though no and it's gotten cold as well so you want comfort food all the time it's so much easier to be healthy when um it's summer outside although summer is a nightmare isn't it for evening drinks and cocktails which always ends in chips pizza and exactly yeah oh well anyway so new year's resolution it has never worked out by when it passed you're gonna bother this year or jacket or next year i mean um i think i will i do actually want to get back into the running so i was thinking maybe a half marathon or something like that to kind of give me a bit of a push because i do think that i need to incorporate a little bit more exercise i think i feel like everyone answers with i'm going to do some more exercise so um and eat more eat less sorry oh god can't eat more eat less do more exercise yeah i think i think is that a really boring answer no i think it's like what most of most of the population generally are trying to be healthier and people are more health conscious right so it's not kind of boring it's kind of a movement people become more aware so people be more careful so just say you're in line with trends yeah do you know what and a nice one i I think my family are based in Wales and I probably don't go home and visit enough.

30:35So I think I'm going to make more of a conscious effort to try and visit them a bit more as well. There we go. Oh, that's nice. Not everyone can say that. Not everyone's got a family in Wales. No, it's really nice to go back home, but I just hate going to Paddington Station. What's wrong with Paddington Station? They're so busy. Oh, I see. They're so busy and the trains are always packed and it's a bit of a nightmare. but I'm gonna be selfless it's about going to see family and friends and suffer on a train journey for however many miles yeah exactly oh thank you Ellie really appreciate you taking the time out your day coming on chatting to us about your mixed story and your projects and everything else it's great to get insight into next generation gen z millennial sort of split yeah I feel like I relate to both but yeah it's it's nice it's been the 1330 thing was um really fun and so nice to be nominated as well brilliant well thank you thank you very much very kind thanks guys thanks for listening in and yeah as always do your um thing for the algorithm life and follow the show and we'll be back again in the new year take care

31:53Thank you.