Marc met Callie van de Merwe after reading his inspiring regular articles on LinkedIn. Callie is an architect and the founding partner of Design Partnership South Africa and Design Partnership Australia.
Callie lives in Sydney and with his companies Design Partnership Australia and Design Partnership South Africa he focuses on hospitality design.
Designed for human behavior
In the first Beyond Interior Design Podcast with Callie, he passionately talks about human behavior and how we designers have a positive influence over that. With our interior designs we can maximize both the physical and emotional reward for the visitor (or user).
Callie likes to add that by doing so we'll also meet the (financial) returns of our clients.
From Behavior to Biology
In his return to the podcast, Callie takes us beyond behavior-based design and into a revolutionary new concept: enviro-hacking. Rooted in neuroscience, psychology, and evolutionary biology, this approach uses environmental triggers to consciously shape how people feel and behave in a space — all backed by science.
We talk about:
- How ceiling height impacts creativity and analytical thinking
- Why warm, circadian lighting supports connection and well-being
- The power of sound, scent, and texture in subconscious behavior
- And how his restaurant project The Safari became a living case study in sensory-driven design
Callie also shares how a dinner party conversation with a biohacker sparked his new identity as a Chief Enviro-Hacker, and how redefining your title can transform your work — and the way others perceive your impact.
“We live into the promise of the title we wear. So when you change the name, you change the work.”
This episode is for any designer or architect ready to move beyond trend-driven design, and into a future where impact, intention, and science come first.
Form Follows Feeling or Form Follows Meaning?
You probably know our vision on form follows meaning. During this talk we discovered that Callie uses quite a similar approach, which is Form Follows Feeling.
Understanding the purpose of a space and knowing the actions and attitudes that will inhabit that space will lead to better designs where people will behave more naturally, more intuitively and more comfortably.
Understanding and framing those behaviours leads to more delightful human experiences.
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This philosophy is under pinned by a belief that we are all fundamentally hardwired to be attracted to a similar sense of proportion, volume, light and space, because for more than 99 percent of human history, we have lived intimately with the natural flow and proportion of nature.
Apart from specifics around detail and décor, this by and large unifies our view of beauty and impacts our feelings of happiness or joy. He illustrates this across a range of international case studies – at different scales, and different typologies showcasing a variety of interior spaces , hospitality, workplace and retail. Design in order to connect people with product and place.
Ilona Maennchen
on 04 Mar 2023