Interview with Green Designer – Jessica Helgerson

Auteur : Esther | 09-11-2010

Based in Portland, Oregon this interior designer creates beautiful interiors that are simple and timeless while respecting the environment. Her talent in this specialization, environmentally sustainable interiors, has earned her high praises and the title as “one of the top 25 designers of America” by the popular House Beautiful Magazine.

Jessica has close ties to France, as she grew up half in America and half in France, this influencing her design aesthetic today. During a sabbatical year in France, she and her husband, architect Yianni Doulis, helped plan the restoration of her great-grandmother’s 16^th century house in Burgundy.

I've always enjoyed drawing and been drawn to beauty in nature and architecture.  I took one design class after college just to try it out and I was hooked!

It sounds a bit cliché nut I'm really inspired by nature.  It never seems to get anything wrong!
I'm inspired by the people who work with me in the office. I think they have amazing ideas and we really push each other creatively.
I also am really drawing-driven.  I think best when I'm drawing. . . if it works on the drawing it will work when it's built. . . if it looks good in the drawing it will look good built.

Buy less. . . live in smaller houses. . . make your life more about friends and family and less about shopping

I noticed that you spent a sabbatical year in France, did you enjoy your stay and did the French style influence your designs in any way?
Yes, I grew up half in America half in France but I think the French part of me is definitely dominant in my design work.  My grandparents had a beautiful old stone house filled with beautiful things that had history, patina, soul. . . it all got deeply under my skin.

I think Vincente Wolf is one of my favorites. . . I love all that white!

I like a really functional floor plan that flows well.   I like to respect the period of the house with anything permanent so that it never need be remodeled again.  And then I like to have fun with furniture and lighter things that reflect the client’s taste and really make it theirs.

Right now we are living in a tiny little house in the country (I mean tiny - 500 square feet!) with my husband and two kids.  We've fixed it up to suit us. . . it is fresh and airy, white wood walls, wide plank oak floors, a sweet sleeping loft, bunk beds, tons of natural light, a view over the kitchen sink out to a giant tree that the kids swing in, a big front porch, friends stop by all the time. . . I love it.

We're working on a couple restaurants, a really cool office space, a set for a tv program, a video arcade (!!) and a bunch of interesting residential projects.