Creativity, Dyslexia and the Spaces We Work In with Ingrid Hustoft

Welcome to the design for every MindPodcast. I'm Rosie Alvin, ADHD Coach, University lecturer and founder of ADHD Focus. On this show, we explore how new-rate diversity and mental health shape creativity across architecture, design and the wider creative industries. Each episode, I chat with architects, designers, creative professionals and experts in new-rate diversity and mental health. We talk about how different minds approach the design process, how people experience the built and creative world, and how we can make spaces and experiences more inclusive, sharing practical insights to help every creative thinker thrive. Today, I'm joined by Ingrid Hustoff, an interior architect specialising in workplace design and commercial projects with experience across Norway and Sweden. Ingrid has worked on projects ranging from large-scale office environments to concept development and spatial planning, managing work from early analysis right through to completion. Her work brings together creativity, technical precision and collaboration and she has developed a strong approach to designing spaces that are both functional and engaging. Alongside her professional journey, Ingrid also brings the perspective of dyslexia, which offers a unique lens on creativity, communication and design thinking. So welcome Ingrid. Hi, hi. Thank you very much for having me. Oh, thank you for joining us, and you and I met in back, right the way back. When would it have been about 2000? It must have been 2012, I think, 2012. The year my son was born at the University of Lincoln. So I'd love to hear more about your professional journey from studying in the University of Lincoln to now. Yeah, well, where to begin? I think I, back when I was trying to figure out what I was going to do, what I was going to study, if I was going to study at all. My thought was, okay, I'm creative. Everyone's told me I'm creative, so that's sort of what you identify with, I think, at that stage. And so that felt very natural at a natural path to go down and explore, and it's hard to think back, like, what was my decision making in it, but also being a bit of interest in trying to learn new things, wanted to learn English better and move abroad. So that was a big part of it, but I've always liked sort of the analysis of rooms and the environments that we live in and how, why do we do the choices that we do and what makes a good room or good environment. So I think I wanted to explore that a bit more and go abroad. So is that those two went hand in hand and how did I get to Lincoln? I think I just looked at different universities in England or across the UK and found that the website was really good. And it had a cathedral, so I thought, okay, let's go ahead. I think being young and not much more winning to the decision than that than exploring and seeing what that study would have been like and, yeah, just went, went from there. And when after you finished your degree, you went back to Norway. Yeah, I did. So after those three years came back to Norway. Fortunately, it was quite hard. Like the industry was struggling a bit at that point, so it was hard to get any first entry level job. Is that what you call it? Yeah. So most people wanted you to have a bit of experience, which is what I wanted to get. But it was going hard to land my first job. And at that point, I had a Swedish boyfriend and he wanted to move back to Sweden. And we were going to visit, we were going to a wedding that that's how it started and I thought, okay, I might as well just apply for some jobs in Stockholm and see what happens because at that point that tried to land a job for about a year in Oslo area didn't work. And then I got three interviews and landed one job. So that was it. And then moving to Sweden. So that was the style of my professional career within interior architecture and design. So I, yeah, I worked for a few different companies in Stockholm for the three years I was there. And really interesting and being involved with architects and other other parts of the job really contractors and that through so. But yeah, after three years, I decided to move back home to Norway and yeah, moved with, as you mentioned, commercial projects and everything from, yeah, the start of the projects being ideas and developing concepts to, yeah, handing over the project and completion. So that's what we're doing since 2015 since I graduated. So it's been a journey and it's been very interesting working for different companies and yeah, how they do it, how they do it is Sweden, how they do it in Norway. And it's good. Yeah, it's great that you have ended up working in the industry because it's not, not always the way with degrees, is it? Yeah, it's great. And what, what kind of spaces or projects have you found yourself most drawn to? That's an interesting question. I've worked with both private customers and also commercialist mentioned. I think what's most interesting is if the, the customers are open to, to being a bit daring and having some solutions or functionalities that might be not be as traditional. So that's really interesting. It doesn't have to be particularly office or private housing or hospitals, restaurants or anything, but if you can use your creativity in a different way, I think that's really interesting. And you can apply that for different, different spaces as well. Yeah, so when you can get challenged a bit, that's, that's when it's most interesting and fun. Yeah, great. And you have experienced with dyslexia. When did that become something that you really understood about yourself? And how does it show up? I think what's interesting is that you never really know if someone is dyslexic until they tell you, or if you can spot it when someone's reading or something, but I was diagnosed when I was probably about 12, 14 or something, so quite early on. I did get the tools for not necessarily physical tools like reading pen or something, something like this, but a bit more time for tasks I was going to do or homework or something, a bit more understanding that it might have taken a bit longer for me than compared to my peers. I do remember it took a very long time doing homework, for instance, that was struggle reading and concentrating in is something that I do struggle with, but I don't think it's been that prominent in my, well, what I thought it hasn't been as prominent, but it's still there. And sometimes it creeps back up and I see that OK, I need to take care of this in a way and step back maybe and give myself some space to allow this to be a problem sometimes. But yeah, I'm lucky that it doesn't take over my life as much as in my do for other people, but definitely concentration is the most difficult part. I remember starting my first job and I couldn't be in an open landscape office that much because there was just too much noise people talking if someone talks and there's buzzing around my my head just go straight to that person and their conversation so I can just read a whole page, but I haven't really read it. What I mean, so I got in in the office really early maybe maybe an hour before everyone was there so just to get all the heavy work, then it is a lot of concentration early in the morning and then I could do other other stuff like model building or material pallets or something like this that doesn't didn't require reading and deep concentration. Yeah, it has affected me, but then as the years went on, I sort of adapted to open landscape office, but recently I have noticed that I need, I need some home office time to do all of these tasks and then can come back to the office and do the other things. I just didn't drain my energy as much as reading particularly. Have you ever worked on any projects that involve open planned spaces? Oh yeah, always. It's an every project and it is funny that we all talk about, well, for a long time, been talking about how that is the new way of working, but really studies have shown that it's not, it's really draining our concentration and it's really good for collaborative work of course and depends what your job require, but mainly we have seen that you should have spaces for deep concentration and not just being an area in an open office where you sort of shield with some curtains or petition walls or something, but actually a closed space. But I don't know how that has developed or changed in the UK the last ten years, but I think people are now seeing that you can't isolate or noise from just acoustic panels or objects and sort of things. So yeah, it's funny how we work with this solution or this way of planning an office, but then for me, that's actually really challenging. So it's sort of ironic. Yeah, I think that it's all about flexibility and variety, isn't it? And not looking at hierarchies, so if you get to a certain level, you might have an office on your own and you don't have to share and all of those, they sort of traditional ideas of the office need to go out the window because like he said, it's about what kind of task can you be in that open plan space for or what kind of tasks or experiences during the day, do you need to be in a quieter space and I think integrating it into the design in the first place is the best way to approach things, isn't it? And I guess since the pandemic, there's a lot more working at home, which I imagine is similar in yeah, it's really changed how everyone works, at least people who work in an office. So that's what we're talking about, isn't it? No, yeah, because when I started the where I worked now, it was right in the beginning of the pandemic or the in the heat of it, I would say the end of 2020 and I started at my new work and I had to go in and luckily I had the privilege to be allowed to be in the office because I had to learn the product and all the furniture that we sell and so I was able to be then we had a big space because it's a showroom for all the furnishes. So I was lucky in that way, but since the pandemic, it's almost required that you can work from home if you want to and it's really something that I was going to say that people require almost or expect that they could have a home office if that's the prime working space. So and also the exception that people are productive at home as well or even more productive and it's harder to take breaks even so that's definitely changed. And do you find that you are more productive in your home office? It depends. I think it's all about I think I share the same annoying feeling that the phone is quite disturbing at times so I need to put that in a different room. Very locked in because there's no one else there. It's easy just to check something and then and then it goes on. But if you structure that at least that's my challenge. So then it's really good and I can sort of flex when I do the different tasks if I need to read something or I need to really concentrate. I'm usually in start of a project to find out what are the challenges for for the customer and different solutions and not having been disrupted by other colleagues who's tapping on my shoulder being asking for something. Yeah, I think we can relate to that. So yeah, I can plan and do the different tasks at home and then I can go in the office and not be irritated at all. Yeah, frustrated about being interrupted by this sort of someone walking while having a conversation. So for me, that's really really good. As I'm yeah, challenged by some dyslexic, that's called challenges. Yeah. And I think we'll say having the choice as well is really important. So sometimes somebody might be really happy to be in the office all week and then other times when they need deep conversation, deep concentration working on a, you know, something research based, for example, you might know that you need to be at home. So I think allowing that flexibility so it's not you're not just stuck to, you know, these two days you have to be in the office and these three days you're at home. I think that if it's allowable, then that can work really well as well. Yeah, personal choice. And just going back to the dyslexia conversation. Am I right in thinking that in schools in Norway, you don't start, you don't do much around reading and writing until you're about seven. I should have asked my friends to have kids in school, but generally, yes, because we start when we're six. And then I mean, the first year's mostly play and probably reading something learning the alphabet and such, but yes, mostly probably around, yeah, when you're seven years old. How do you think it is for children who are who are dyslexic at school? Do you think it's very challenging or is the system in Norway quite accommodating? Well, from my experience, it was really good even when I was in school because I was, yeah, I got the diagnosis when I was about 12, I think. And that was a while ago. So I think even when my younger brother, when he was in school, his classmate, he really struggled, had a very heavy dyslexic diagnosis. So he really couldn't read much. So he had all those tools, you know, a pen that reads for you and everything that's quite high tech back then. I think, so I think schools absolutely are accommodative for making it as easy as possible. But there's always the struggle with enough teachers and enough people to take care of those who need a bit more assistance and still keeping those who want more advanced and say to to be in the same class, because people are so different and school system is a bit different in Norway than then in the UK, because everyone in the same year starts that school year, so everyone isn't born in 2000. So let's say they're all in the same school year, so you could have someone born in January and someone born in December. So it's very big difference. So when you start school, someone is almost like a year older than their classmate, so it could be in the bandit and this is voltage. So but generally, I do have the feeling that it's very much taking care of. And of course, they're very known now that people struggle with all types of diagnosis if it's dyslexia or something, something different. So yeah. I think one thing that strikes me with two children in school who are about dyslexic, And it was picked up. very, very young for both of them, but I know that's not the case. And particularly, you would know from when you were at university, there was a lot of students who didn't get their diagnosis until second or third year of university that they were completely missed at school. And I do remember that, yeah, there was a few, there was only really a few students that I came across, including you, who did have that early diagnosis, which was really interesting. Oh, okay, yeah. And then when students realised they were dyslexic, everything starts making sense, and they looked on their school life. I feel like we were quite lucky, I think, because we had it on our radar with the children, that they, and say they were diagnosed very young, so they have all of the, they have really excellent support, actually, and the tech that you're, you're talking about, anything that was available 20 years ago, but they have, you know, laptop support, extra support from teaching assistants and so on, and any kind of technology they need. But I, what I feel is really missing is the, is them understanding that dyslexia comes with so many strengths, and that they, they're, I mean, even on, you know, on this podcast, the people I speak to you who are dyslexic have had quite exceptional careers, and, and particularly in the area of spatial design, which is, you know, and it took, and I just feel like the recognising their strengths at school is not really something that is picked up on. Do you have any experience of that when you were younger? Well, that's a very good point. I think that in particular is not picked up. Maybe now, maybe a bit more now, but back then it was just, yeah, everyone had to do the same tasks and the same requirements for everyone. So yeah, going back to having a really hard time doing my homework, and I spent such a long time completing them, and comparing that to my brother who's not a sticky brain, but he could read something and then, then twice maybe, not, not seven, and then he could repeat, or he can do well on a test. But, and I was always very annoyed by that. Why do I have to work so hard to get less, better results than my brother, but realising when we got to, yeah, sort of college or university that I had then, because of this, learned how to study and to work hard. And he had gotten so much free, as you could say, so at that point when he realised that, oh, I need to really study and work hard to get the good grades, and that's something I see that, okay, maybe I had to, there was a big struggle in the beginning, but it really paid off afterwards, because I taught myself how I needed to work in order to get through everything and to do well on assignments or that hand and the submissions and say everything. So, I think that was a really good thing to realise in later, later years that that was a, that was a perk. And yeah, there's many, we talked about this with friends of mine that many people who, maybe a born later in the year, who doesn't have, are not developed as much, because when you, this big difference when you're six years old or so many years old, so you might be, you have that disadvantage as being a bit younger, but that also often goes to more creative paths and doing all these things. So, I don't know if there's a, there's a direct result of maybe being dyslexic for me going to more creative work or something, but I've definitely always been very creative in everything I do, and yeah, maybe there will be something coming up later as well being that I realised that, oh yeah, this was actually quite perk, being dyslexic, I don't know yet, but like, and then how do you balance the, you're having your creative ideas with the technical detailing and coordination of projects? Yeah, that's also a thing. I've had to learn how to sort of use as a, as a good tool of sort of just letting go and let all the ideas come in and explore ideas and go into this, this direction or that direction, but then later it happens a lot in the beginning, and it might happen sometimes now as well, but you go back and you see, I hope it might not be exactly what the customer was looking for, or maybe I have to email them or have phone them and do ask, would you go in this direction or is this too far off of something like that? But that often happens, so being structured and being, yeah, having a clear line of deadlines and that's something I need to be very aware of and not let things drag on and then suddenly being, oh, God, no, it's not that much time left or something, so marking in the calendar is very much my tool for, for keeping track on projects as well, so being very creative for me is really good, but when you have a lot of projects at the same time who's in the different stages of a process than it might be a bit overwhelming sometimes, but usually that helps and noting and writing down, because I can never remember if there's a Zoom meeting or something and we're talking to a customer, I need to write everything down and build a point otherwise, day or two later, it's gone, so I remember that in the university as well, not the crit, but when we went through all the projects and stages, I asked my tutor if I could record the sessions where I could go back and remember, because then I wouldn't have to concentrate on remembering what the person was saying or what you were saying and I could just go back and yeah, concentrate on being in the moment there and then then yeah, go back and structure whatever I had to do in the project, so it's, and of course now we could have so many tools with AI and that's happening more and more, so I need to be a bit more up to date on that platform, I think, because there's so many tools that they can access, but I think many people don't know where they are or how you can start using them and it's a bit of overwhelming that as well, so I think that's the next step for working for me working now, yeah. There's quite a lot of AI tools in the interiors and architecture industry that I've been seeing, I don't work in practice anymore, so I don't use tools, but I've been seeing the tools that are available, is this something that's been integrated into your practice? Yeah, it definitely has and I mean it's so much with if it's rendering or if it's picking collages or something like this, but also in meetings for example, you could sort of record everything going on and it would make notes for you instead of me making the notes myself, for instance, that would have been very helpful to start using actually some thinking about it, but definitely easing AI a lot more would, I mean kickstart the process, but also having it quickly move forward, but it's also not letting go of the creativity yourself, so I think it's going to be a balance how you would want to use it and again it's different for everyone who how they're doing the steps and processes in the project and yeah how it fits them, but definitely there's a lot to explore at the moment. Yeah, it looks amazing, some of the tools, what do you enjoy most about your job and your career? Oh gosh, I think it's really interesting to be reminded how many people, how the environment of how most people are working in, because you you bit spoiled when you sit in a really nice showroom with a nice furniture, into everything's planned really well and but then you of course meet the customers who need to upgrade or they're doing a total renovation or moving to a new office. So it's both really fun having the challenge of starting something from scratch, doing everything from start to finish or finding that this is a office where they need to do some touch-up but most people are on the budget so let's always put off the challenge but working with not always working with the black covers can also be very fun and interesting seeing how you could do the best with what we've got so that's also but it's really fun coming into different companies, offices and see how they work and practice in there so that I think that's some of the most fun parts of it and people are generally very interested and think that this aspect of the renovation is really fun and inspiring so it's that you always met with people who are very yeah positive and eager to see what the results are going to be and of course you want to deliver your best and try to not take things too personal and yeah part of the job that the people are not always going to agree and you have your perceptions and things that you relate to interior-wise so yeah it's it's always meeting new people and seeing how they want to use a space and of course seeing it finish just some of the most fun and seeing that your ideas has come through and they enjoy using the space it's yeah I have to say that's most enjoyable yeah that's lovely and do you have any advice for young students who are graduating soon who are looking to go into the industry yeah absolutely I wish I mean I went to a sort of education fair before I decided on what I wanted to do and what I wanted to study and where I wanted to go but I think what would really would have been helpful would be to actually go to an office in architecture office and get to talk to some of them and if they're generous enough to have the time and talk to the students but how the day-to-day life is and what's your sort of actual tasks and or how you go about the day and the processes because that's what is going to be the most how do you say effective on your life sort of because you sort of want to know how every day is going to look like at least that's how I felt that it would have been interesting to see and it might be different in different countries as well but yeah going maybe going to an architecture office and ask some of them how is it going to be and usually they are at the fairs as well but always a bit different when I was there so that would have been really helpful to seek out oh this yeah this is definitely something I want to do because I think I've heard so many people coming into the industry after studying and being like oh is this how it every day life is going to be this is not for me at all so being fully prepared for yeah how life is going to be after three or five years studying it's really important and I think some students are actually quite put off with the idea that they might have to work late or they're sort of notoriously long hours in architecture and interior you know in design industries I definitely yeah and it would have the badge of honor as well yeah yeah that is changing as far as seeing more articles about it being you know you don't get paid for the working overtime and it's sort of very expected of you and it's got to say it's even worse like more in central Europe you I would say I have some friends working in Paris and it's yeah notoriously late hours and hard work for very little appreciation so I do consider myself very lucky being being where I am and working for having a system that really does support you as well so yeah I think that is quite important as well isn't it when I worked in Ireland I was just paid by the hour and which was great because it was just what I wanted at the time and say sometimes I'd have to work I think you know I sometimes people working four weeks in a row and up until three o'clock in the morning sometimes but I didn't really mind because I was getting paid and all that money was going into me going tracking but I think if that's your full-time job and you're having to work at weekends and very late nights it's not very attractive so yeah we're yeah you're priority in what stage are in your life of course if it's family and everything it's not really suitable being working four weeks in a row and late hours of course but yeah you do have to have a stamina for yeah many working hours yeah and I remember when I was at university the I mean I did an all night I think every time I had a project and it was partly because I hadn't finished the work but also I thought there's got to be something else that I can do so why don't I just make a model and then I stay up all night and it which is just terrible for hell yeah but it was so it was so ingrained in us at university that this was very normal and there wasn't no one none of the cheaters particularly said you need to do in all nighter but I know cheaters that have said that to students back in back in the day when I was at university very long time ago but I think that like as I learned more about ADHD the hyperfocus that comes with the deadline this is often how a new rate of urgent individuals work when there's a deadline leaving they suddenly spring into action and then they're doing all that work in the last you know day or two and I said you know see it I used to see it quite frequently with students and I certainly had that experience myself but looking back I just think this is a such a terrible way of working yeah oh I was never that kind of person who could do like the sprint at the end of just before the deadline oh again having having to teach myself that oh I need to work really hard to get there in there I think my brain sort of just shuts off if it's too much stress or pressure so I need to be as well as the concentration part I need to be alone and when I was little I had to sit alone in the room no no sound no music or anything because I would just be distracted immediately so I had to have it to just quiet and read and that also I think has to do with that I was good at planning and I had to plan ahead to get the project done and so I could relax and be okay if I've got more time I could do that model do some do some renderings but my fellow students some of them it was the last 30 hours was way even more but at that point I could actually lean back and relax and be okay I've submitted everything successfully yeah that's learning about how it works but at that point I don't think I knew that that is a result of having to learn how to study at a young age but it's certainly helped later because it's the same now if reading out loud out loud someone or the smallest amount of pressure just makes my brain shut off it's the same so I also had seen in preparation for presentations to go through the whole presentation almost to read so I could just repeat everything by memory because otherwise I couldn't And just get up. there and talk and be very flexible and speed. Yeah, no, I had to study really hard and prepare and still have to do that if there's a presentation for clients or something. Yeah. Is that you made an interesting point there? I wonder whether because when you're dyslexic and you're diagnosed at school, so you're just taught how your brain works so much more than the other children. And like I see with my children that they're being constantly asked how they learn best and what they need. And so I'm seeing that they have a really good understanding of what they need. And I guess that does, you know, create, I mean, I certainly see that with people I know who were diagnosed with children that they are extremely organised. And I used to, at the university, I just, I thought it was fantastic when we had dyslexic students known all their lives and they'd had, they have all of these things in place because they know their own brains. Yeah. But maybe it's to the time, yeah, children aren't really taught way at school, are they? That's a really good point actually. Maybe in that sense, there's an advantage of being, okay, if you've diagnosed with dyslexic, dyslexia or something similar, then you know that, oh, this is my, are my challenges. So I could do this and this to, to better handle all these situations. But maybe, yeah, perhaps students who, and does not have these challenges are a bit on a, I don't know if you say on a bare ground, but where, how does my brain work and how, how am I going to, what, what are the tools that could help me best succeed and but that's a really good point actually. I mean, I certainly didn't have any idea how my brain worked. I did have, yeah, I did have certain kind of coping mechanisms, but I don't feel like they were particularly, they were very obscure and roundabout and they just sort of worked for me, but they were not very efficient. And, and I think when, you can, yeah, when you can show children how things could be done and let them try them out, it's, it's great. So, yeah, yeah, I mean, so we'll end the podcast with the question, what is your most helpful habit to support your creative practice? Oh, hmm. Might be allowing room for just explore. As I mentioned a bit for not restrict, restrict yourself to being, okay, I have 15 minutes to do this in essence, or an hour or two days or something to complete something, but allow your brain to just explore and there's so many different ways of doing this, but for instance, you could also do, I remember doing this in school, having one or two minutes where you just do some sketches and just made your creativity run wild and then collect them and source down the ones that would actually be helpful, but I think that is a very good way of not restricting yourself to being a county to be on a time schedule here and it needs to be sufficient to leading to good results, the whole way through, but actually some of the really good ideas comes from when you could just let go, I think. And then that would be a very good, I think that's a much more secure about my choices later on if I've done this stage and yeah, let's go a bit because then you get to explore different directions and then you can come back to something and maybe some of the ideas could work for different projects later on, so don't restrict yourself for, think that you need to be as effective and sufficient always because that doesn't work and I've had to practice this a lot, I always want to be productive and my partner will resist that it's good to have some, some unproductive time and that's maybe when the good ideas come, yeah, fall into your head, so I'm saying, oh that's great, it's been lovely having a conversation with you after all these years and thank you very much for joining me. Thank you, likewise, we're really good and really fun being on it, yeah, oh my mind is some, some things I need to explore, yes, thank you. A huge thank you to my guest and to you for joining us on design for every mind. I hope you enjoyed the conversation and found something that resonated. If you did, please share the episode with a friend or colleague and don't forget to subscribe so you'll be the first to know when new episodes come out. You can find me at ADHDfocus.k.uk or connect with me on LinkedIn, I'd love to hear your thoughts and experiences, see you in the next episode.