At Liquid Interiors, we aim to create beautiful, healthy, and sustainable sanctuaries for each client. This is how we make sure they always come home to their own bespoke sanctuary. When coming up with a comprehensive study of the different aspects involved in a space, our team’s certified interior design professionals bring forth designs centred around the LEED rating system and the WELL Building Standard®.

Polina Volkonskaya, our senior interior designer and WELL® certified professional, is just one of the many talented experts on our team. Here, Polina gives us a quick glimpse of what her exciting daily life is like as an interior designer at an award-winning, internationally-acclaimed interior design firm.

As a senior designer 

Our firm is a tight-knit family of passionate designers who share one collective goal in each space we design. This shared idea of creating a sanctuary is meant to place the homeowners’ physical and emotional well-being at the heart of the design. For senior designer Polina Volkonskaya, it’s essential to ensure that the level of quality in every project meets our standards of wellness and environmental friendliness.

“Interior design is a very holistic form of design that requires mindfulness in connecting with yourself and with others,” shared Volkonskaya. An individual’s mindset plays a huge role in how their day-to-day routine unfolds, which is why we, at Liquid Interiors, give so much importance to health, wellness, and sustainability.

As an interior designer, Polina always has something each day to keep her on her toes. “My days are structured for the most part but there is always an element of surprise—there’s always something happening and that’s how I like it,” said Volkonskaya with a laugh.

Getting into the industry

In an industry where every designer is trying to come up with their own unique, eye-catching designs in order to find a role in top interior design firms, Volkonskaya revisits her roots, and notes that her values “have been instilled” by her parents. “I understand that practising design with the environment and health in mind was more fulfilling than working for the ‘star design firms.’”

As she held these values close to her career in interior design, this ultimately led her Rowena Gonzales, our founder and CEO and by extension, Liquid Interiors. Polina was able to share this dream of “design[ing] spaces with the environment in mind.” 

But it didn’t stop there – the senior designer shared that eventually, Gonzales introduced her to WELL® and had her join the Liquid Interiors team. Volkonskaya has been a WELL® certified professional since 2020. “This gave me the opportunity to expand my dream and take it to another level—and it’s been a phenomenal experience.”

Wellness and sustainability in practise

Here at Liquid Interiors, we always aim to create personalised and meaningful spaces for our clients that centre around the improvement of their environment, health, and lifestyle. To Polina, spaces are essential to our lifestyle habits. “[Our personal] spaces are where we spend a majority of our time,” she said. “It’s important to think about how they can be enhanced for our health and overall way of life”. 

Volkonskaya shares that she always looks for ways to expand her skill set as a designer; and as an accredited professional of WELL® — a global-leading standard for holistic approaches to transforming spaces — she feels the responsibility to “find opportunities to apply this goal” to all of her projects.

Implementing the firm’s healthy and sustainable values does not stop in her projects and designs. Volkonskaya gives insights on how she applies wellness and sustainability in the framework of her personal life. “I practise being mindful of things every day. Good design is thought through and well planned—it reflects on the practise of being mindful.” 

She expresses how it is a constant choice each day to prioritise your wellbeing. Especially for those who have the goal to make a positive impact on the environment, she emphasises the power of practising mindfulness. To her, this practise “gives meaning” and motivates her to continue to improve in her field of practise.

Drive to build sanctuaries

Other than mindfulness, Volkonskaya also shares with us her personal motivation for her passion for interior design. “I’m driven mainly by my own style of living, to practise what I preach when it comes to interior design.” The home is a space where people do not just live in; the home is a sanctuary where one can relax and rejuvenate, and create memories to last a lifetime with loved ones. 

For Volkonskaya, her style of living entails a space where people are comfortable in healthy and sustainable ways. “People need to feel confident that their health is not compromised in the long run while indoors,” she shares with us.

Her experience in working on projects in Hong Kong made her realise how the city is in need of designs as well as designers who share the same drive as her. As it becomes increasingly difficult to find living spaces that may compromise health and safety of one’s wellbeing, Polina shared, “my job is to enhance and improve the health of individuals through design, and in turn, it brings a positive change in homes they enjoy being in.” She hopes that these designers continue to develop “in-depth knowledge and practical skills to turn common spaces into places people can enjoy being in.”