Alissa Wehmueller Of Helix Architecture + Design On Five Things You Need To Create A Highly Successful Career As A Commercial Designer
An Interview With Athalia Monae
Strive for authenticity. In the world of Pinterest and Instagram it’s easy to constantly find the eye-candy and inspirational spaces you enjoy. It’s a bigger challenge to truly start from scratch and find ways to use materials you haven’t seen before. This goes hand in hand with respecting the authenticity of others’ work. I’ve gotten frustrated with the endless knock-offs in our industry in furniture and materials. I’ve been working to call those out — and celebrate the manufacturers really doing something unique.
As a part of my series about the ‘Five Things You Need To Know To Create A Highly Successful Career As A Commercial Designer,’ I had the pleasure of interviewing Alissa Wehmueller.
Alissa Wehmueller, IIDA, LEED AP, WELL AP, is a Partner and Director of Interior Design at Helix Architecture + Design, an integrated architecture and interior design firm with offices in Kansas City and Denver. She melds her experience across workplace, higher education, and hospitality projects. Alissa currently serves on the Board of Trustees for the Kansas City Art Institute and on the Downtown Council of Kansas City Executive Committee; she has previously served as President of the International Interior Design Association’s (IIDA) Mid-America Chapter and Co-Chair of Kansas City Design Week. Her numerous honors include IIDA International Member of the Year, an annual honor given to one individual member who demonstrates dedication to the industry through volunteer work and preservation of the organization’s mission.
Thank you for joining us today! Can you share the story of what led you to pursue a career in commercial design?
I was lucky to have tolerant parents! As a kid, I’d be awake at two in the morning rearranging the furniture, a common story for designers and architects. I have a mix of engineers and artists on both sides of my family, so I might’ve inherited brainwaves from both and met in the middle.
I remember reading a book about the architect Julia Morgan as a child and being inspired. She was an early pioneer as a female architect and designed Hearst Castle, among many other buildings. I loved drawing floorplans of imaginary buildings and then outfitting them with décor from the Sears catalog. The merging of architecture, art, and graphics led me to pursue interior design in college, earning a BFA from Iowa State University. Quickly in school I was drawn to commercial buildings (over residential), as I appreciated the amount of people those projects could have an impact on.
What’s the most interesting or amusing experience you’ve had in your career so far, and what lesson did you learn from it?
It’s hard to name one! I constantly find myself touring some incredible old building ripe for reuse thinking ‘how cool is this profession?’
One of the most interesting parts of this career is diving into the organizations we work with — getting to understand how their businesses run and what impact the physical environment has on their people, the goals and ‘why’ of each strategic decision, observing how leaders within these groups bring their teams together. It’s a constant lesson in business and leadership if you’re paying attention.
Do you have a favorite life lesson quote? Can you share a story about how it has been relevant in your life?
“Great design can change people’s lives for the better.” Design is not just about aesthetics; it’s about solving problems in the most beautiful and efficient ways. I want us to create experiential spaces that have enduring impact on communities. Whether we’re designing an office, apartment building, or library, we consider micro and macro aspects, from how an individual is going to feel in the space to how the building interacts with its context.
Also, “Take your pleasure seriously” was the mantra of influential designers/architects Charles and Ray Eames. Sometimes we can get bogged down by the business, technology, and minutiae of our industry that we forget that at the heart what we do is fun.
As a successful business leader, which three character traits have been most crucial to your success? Can you share a story or example for each?
1. Involvement: I benefitted immensely from involvement in the local chapter the International Interior Design Association (IIDA) early in my career. It allowed me to build skillsets I might not have otherwise had a chance to so early on. That led me to engaging with Kansas City Design Week, bringing together multiple design disciplines for a week of design-focused events.
As my career progressed, I was able to participate in the Kansas City Chamber of Commerce’s Centurions leadership program. It aligns with my desire for my hometown to thrive, and I feel a responsibility to contribute. I’m lucky to be part of an industry that literally gets to build our community — create buildings and spaces for the people working, learning, and playing here. I want to be informed about the city and its needs, challenges, and goals. Centurions set a great example for how to bring value to anything you get involved with. I don’t want to fill a seat on a board to keep a chair warm — I want to help. “Bloom where you’re planted” is an adage I live by.
2. Empathy: The goal with any user is to put yourself in their shoes, understand the challenges they’re experiencing, what are they excited about, what will make the space feel created specifically for them. When we prepared to interview for a residence hall at a leading art school, we looked at statistics on art students specifically (vs. all college/university students). The research pointed to a high population of LGBTQ students in the arts. We wanted to make sure everyone felt comfortable with the facilities provided, particularly the restrooms. We discussed offering a mix of communal and individual restrooms to give residents choices. We used signage that said “toilets for all,” a more inclusive term than “gender neutral” or “unisex.”
We also recognized a need for many different kinds of spaces to meet a neurodiverse population. This is a growing consideration with all university, as well as workplace, design. These considerations — and our ability to truly understand how the building will be used by a specific population — contributed to the great success of this award-winning residence for Kansas City Art Institute.
3. Positivity: Assume everyone else is doing the best they can. If you trust the people designing products, the engineers working on the space, and the contractors building the project, it helps you approach the project from an optimistic perspective.
Can you describe a recent project you completed and what your specific contributions were?
We recently completed the renovation of two historic 1930s buildings, connecting them with the intent of creating a new small-scale workplace model. So many of our workplace clients move into a new space and want their own conference rooms, kitchens, wellness rooms, and more — expensive and detailed spaces that are often redundant in a multi-tenant building. We wanted to create a building with shared amenities, including a variety of conference rooms, a well-stocked kitchen, a great patio, quiet room for focus, and more. The tenant spaces would be just for people space, workstations, and offices. As the building progressed, we liked the concept enough that we decided to move our own office into the building.
I worked closely with the building owner in developing the initial concept, exploring amenity options, developing a design concept for the look and feel of the interior, selecting and specifying interior finishes, lighting and furniture, and working with our AV partner to make sure each of these spaces works for the various tenants.
Once we decided to move into the building, we designed our own suite to be a flexible canvas for our group of architects and designers to collaborate, pin-up work, and discuss ideas. The great thing about designing your own office is the ability to experiment and test ideas. Then we can present those tried-and-true solutions to clients.
How do you approach balancing aesthetics and functionality in your designs?
It’s an endless push/pull! I fall into the category of designers who start with function first (solve the problem!) and I have to push myself to add texture, add color, add more layers. Some designers start at the other end and must work at editing, simplifying. Both are good places to start if you work to find balance in the middle.
What is your design philosophy when it comes to commercial spaces?
Clients come to us for our expertise and talents to interpret their needs into beautiful and functional results. We layer our knowledge and experience in problem-solving to their goals and bring them something they had never imagined.
Create the right solution for the client — be in a workplace, a university, a library, etc. but be conscious that (hopefully) this building and the space you create will have a very long life, one that might transform into something different than it is today. Creating a space that is timeless and responsible while responding to that client’s needs and goals is critical.
Where do you draw your inspiration for your designs?
I grew up in Colorado, where spending a lot of memorable time outdoors developed a connection to nature and simple materials.
I’m inspired by what I see in my travels. The Vitra Design Museum campus in Germany is a favorite. There are so many buildings by well-known architects. One of my favorites is VitraHaus by Herzog & de Meuron. I like its simplicity mixed with a fun, playful element. But the spaces I tend to be inspired by most don’t have famous architects involved. Traveling in Japan, I was captivated by the very simple temples and shrines. There’s a humble beauty to the natural materials and an emphasis and importance on what is happening in the space vs. the space itself.
What strategies do you use to ensure your designs meet the needs of the end-users?
Listening — especially in those early conversations around a larger vision. Through multiple conversations with the client, ideas often evolve that none of us had previously considered. It’s important to get input from several different users. The employee who has worked in the space for 19 years and the new graduate who just started both have equally insightful perspectives and are going to interact with the environment in different ways. We test ideas and share concepts as we progress to get feedback and continue adjusting.
How do you approach sustainability in your commercial projects?
I strive to create timeless designs in a profession that can be overly embracing of trends and disposable. In all of our projects, we are intentional in the materials we select with careful research on where they’re made and what they’re composed of. Sustainable materials are a big issue in the design industry. The thirst for “newness” doesn’t help, as perfectly good, serviceable — and even beautiful — things get replaced. We’re creative in looking for ways to reuse materials and furniture. We’ve coordinated glass walls being demolished on one project to be installed at a non-profit’s new office. Recently we were able to carefully use the ‘skeleton’ and infrastructure of hundreds of workstations with new surfaces and storage to serve a new way of working.
Helix had been in our previous building for a couple of decades before the recent relocation. We downsized our footprint and were able to rehome 100 percent of the furnishings we didn’t move to the new office with other organizations and non-profits. Both of our offices were projects of adaptive reuse, meaning the original building was created for a specific purpose (warehouse, factory, etc.) and is renovated with a new use, such as office.
What impact do you think remote work and digital transformation will have on the design of commercial spaces?
When people do get together in person, there’s a heightened expectation of what that experience brings. It not only needs to have enhanced amenities but also offer the same diversity of focus, quiet, lively, and engaging spaces that individuals can continue customizing based on their activity. In general, we’re seeing clients invest in ‘less but better’ — less square footage than they may have previously planned on but with a better level of finish, better integration of A/V, and more variety.
What are the five things you believe are essential for creating a highly successful career in commercial design? Can you share a story or example for each?
1. Listen. This applies to your clients, to the team you’re working with at your firm, to collaborators (such as architects and contractors), and to community stakeholders. Once you’ve synthesized all that information, you also need to listen to yourself and trust your instincts.
2. Pay attention. Consider the environment around you. Whether you’re traveling around the world or to the coffee shop on your block, pay attention to the details, the materials, how furniture is used, how art is integrated, and other interesting aspects. Ask yourself why it works — or doesn’t work.
3. Be curious about the people around you. IIDA’s Executive VP and CEO, Cheryl Durst, once said, “You can’t design for the world if you’re not of the world.” You, as an individual, have one perspective based on your own experiences. It’s your responsibility as a designer to be curious, to learn about others, seek out their personal perspective and their experiences to fully understand how they will use a space and the effect it will have on them.
4. Strive for authenticity. In the world of Pinterest and Instagram it’s easy to constantly find the eye-candy and inspirational spaces you enjoy. It’s a bigger challenge to truly start from scratch and find ways to use materials you haven’t seen before. This goes hand in hand with respecting the authenticity of others’ work. I’ve gotten frustrated with the endless knock-offs in our industry in furniture and materials. I’ve been working to call those out — and celebrate the manufacturers really doing something unique.
5. Study and research. See a piece of art you enjoy? Learn about the artist, dig into their creative process, and look at more of their work. Find joy in going down a rabbit hole. Question the usual answers. We specify a significant amount of acoustic ceilings — that 2’x2′ grid you often see overhead. I’m embarrassed to admit I let more than a decade of using that material go by before I questioned what that ceiling tile was made of. I set up a call with one of the manufacturers and dug into everything that goes into each different type of tile. I learned which had the most recycled content, why some could be made domestically and why others couldn’t.
What role do you think commercial design plays in community building and social interaction?
Our work begins and ends with people. In contrast to art, which can make a statement or be aesthetic for its own sake, design intentionally solves problems. Great design does it in a pleasing way that contributes to individuals and communities.
We are trained in “design thinking.” We’re taught how to observe, how to listen, how to take in information and distill it down to what’s important — and then devise an efficient, responsible, beautiful solution. Within IIDA, a couple of our members have entered local politics. They talk about how a design-thinking mindset has a positive impact on addressing non-design issues. It’s encouraging to see how people are starting to use design thinking elsewhere.
Given your influence, if you could inspire a movement to bring the best results and solutions to the greatest number of people, what would it be? You never know what impact your idea might have!
I want interior designers to be more conscientious about the magnitude of our decisions. They should recognize how much material is going to a landfill when a space is demolished and furniture thrown away. Be conscious of what ingredients are used in the thousands of square feet of carpet you just specified. What’s going to happen to that trendy ceiling in five years at the end of a client’s lease? We need a different attitude toward the longevity of materials.
How can our readers follow your work online?
Website: https://www.helixus.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/helixKC
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/helix_kc
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/helix-architecture—design
Thank you for your time and excellent insights! We wish you continued success.
About the Interviewer: Athalia Monae is a product creator, published author, entrepreneur, advocate for Feed Our Starving Children, contributing writer for Entrepreneur Media, and founder of Pouches By Alahta.
Alissa Wehmueller Of Helix Architecture + Design On Five Things You Need To Create A Highly… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.