“Design is always about connecting to a project or a person—to whoever you are designing for. Too many people ask me about my style. But my style doesn’t matter at all. Rather, it’s your style that matters.”

Terese Simonsen, the founder and owner of the interior architecture brand Fra Innersida—“from the inside”, in English—connects with us in her shared office in Tromsø. As an interior architect, furniture designer, and designer of colours and spaces, she explains how the nature of her work inevitably changes radically from project to project.

“Design—whether that’s interiors, furniture, or just a colour concept—starts with digging down into the core of the place and the client. That is what I find most interesting about the design process. It’s not about what I want or feel or think, but about understanding what’s best for that particular space.”

This self-effacing approach is working well for Terese. Among her clients are some of the biggest banks in the north of Norway, private homeowners, a number of municipalities—including that of the Sámi community in Karasjok—and now Vollan Gjestestue, one of the most recognisable taverns on the road out of Tromsø.

“This tavern has been a particular challenge,” Terese says. “There are just so many people that use it, love it, and have an opinion. Ultimately, my job is to understand who I am designing it for. Is that the manager, the tourists who pass by, or the locals? To my mind, the best design will understand that it is a mix of all three.”

Working with an architecture firm until 2016, Terese set up Fra Innersida for exactly this kind of challenge—in which she would use her own unique approach to design to deliver personally tailored solutions to clients across the north of Norway.

“It’s really interesting to work in northern Norway. There just aren’t many of us doing what we do at this level. That means you really need to be ready for a bit of everything—and you don’t really specialise in any one particular direction,” she tells us.

“On the other hand, being up here means that you need to make connections with those people with whom you work well. I’ve always been really lucky to have had great relationships with everyone I have worked with.”

Yet the challenge of the north is not just practical. Rather, Terese insists, in these climates the way that you think about spaces must change too.

“This isn’t Italy, where you might spend a lot of your time outside. Really, it’s completely dark here between October and February—so lighting, the warmth of colours, and interiors matter much more. To put it simply, it’s just incredibly important that you have a nice warm place to come home to.”

Whether in homes, restaurants, or public or private buildings, Terese’s practice remains underpinned by a commitment to the environment.

“Everything we do needs to be done with the environment in mind—and when we talk about sustainable homes and buildings, interior architects and designers need to be the ones to drive this trend,” she tells us.

“The days are over when we could go into a project and just throw everything away. Instead of buying a new table, furniture, or fittings, it is more interesting and sustainable to work with what we have already. The crazy thing is that it is often cheaper to buy new things. To my mind, it’s the responsibility of designers to change this.”