Back in 2020, a design student called Erin spent a week with us on work experience while studying Interior Design at Manchester Metropolitan University. Today, Erin is a leading figure in procedural and computational design, working with clients including Apple, Blender, and Unity. None of that had happened yet. At the time, Erin was simply a student with a sketchbook and a sharp eye.
We sent Erin to two of our completed Outsiders Stores projects, Slater Street in Liverpool and Coal Drops Yard in London, with a simple brief: sketch what's actually there, not what the design brief said should be there.
Looking back at those sketches now, the eye for systems and structure that would later define Erin's career in procedural design is already visible. The sketches pick out how materials repeat across a space, where structural rhythm holds a design together and the small details a regular shopper would walk straight past. A trained eye misses things precisely because it has seen so many spaces before. A different kind of eye, even an untrained one, often catches what's been missed.
It's a useful reminder for anyone designing retail and leisure spaces: the people who experience them rarely share the designer's trained eye, and designing with that in mind is what makes a space work for the people actually in it.
Talk to WDC Spaces about your project.
Created on
October 1, 2020
Last updated on
June 18, 2026
