Contract Magazine - July 2020 - 14

PROFILE

Lois Wellwood, IIDA, is a director and global interiors
practice leader for SOM. The Los Angeles-based
designer's expertise is workplace design and
strategy, with a focus on helping organizations
efficiently and effectively adapt to change and
support multiple functions throughout a typical
day at the office. She also has experience designing
innovative retail interiors, and conceiving precedentsetting hospitality and residential spaces for both
private and public sector clients. At SOM, she has
served as design leader and manager on projects
for Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, IPsoft Inc.,
and JPMorgan Chase & Co.
How does your background in interior architecture
inform the way you approach projects in your
position with SOM?
In all our work at SOM, we seek an exceptionally deep,
holistic view of our clients at the onset. We constantly
try to push past any preconceived ideas to introduce
goals that they might not otherwise have realized.
This is true at the larger, urbanistic scale of
architecture as well as within interior environments.

PHOTOGRAPHY: JEFF GOLDBERG (TOP); RAFAEL GAMO (BOTTOM)

Designer
You
Should
Know
Lois
Wellwood

Our work is a constant process of pushing and
be otherwise, because we're anticipating the future
expanding boundaries.
as opposed to designing for today, or for the past.
At SOM, architects, interior designers, structural Which interior spaces have you worked on
engineers, and city planners work side by side,
recently? Was there something innovative that
and collaboration between these disciplines means
you feel you brought to the project?
that interior architectural considerations are
When we began our work for the MetroTech Center,
integrated into our projects from the start. There
the client only asked us to renovate the cafeteria,
is still a misperception that interior architects come
but we recognized an immense opportunity to rethink
in at the end of a project and place furniture, and
food and beverage and how to make it a destination.
we have demonstrated that this couldn't be further
The final design created a multifaceted social hub-
from the truth. In our work, the entire design process
with a robust food offering, coffee, a sushi bar, a library,
is informed by the demands of the interior
and a game room-that is a whole new kind of hub, one
requirements from day one. Being able to toggle
that connects and inspires people, bolsters the client's
between the perspectives of all of these disciplines
brand and culture, and is authentic to its location
has made me a better designer.
in downtown Brooklyn. I also recently worked with
What is unique about your overall design approach? our New York team to develop and implement IPsoft's
The way we challenge our clients to dream bigger
global workplace strategy and design standards.
and be bolder is very unusual. We begin every project
At the company's New York headquarters in Lower
by guiding them through a process that gives them
Manhattan, we created their Innovation Lounge,
permission to confront assumptions and experiment
where IPsoft's artificial intelligence agent comes alive
with new ideas until we reach a solution that exceeds
on a moveable, 40-foot-long curved LED screen.
their initial expectations. This process results
Currently, I am leading a large-scale government
in designs that are more resilient than they would
project in Northern California. We are working with
contractdesign.com

JULY 2020

http://www.contractdesign.com

Contract Magazine - July 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Contract Magazine - July 2020