Peter Webster
Design Office
Design Office
PW—DO
JOURNAL
What Is a Design System, and Why Should Architects Care?
7 July 2025
As someone who has worked at the edge of architecture, industrial design, and systems development, I see these design moments as something more: as fragments of potential systems, quietly waiting to be developed, formalised, and if done well, scaled.
This is an essay about design systems, not in the UI or software sense, but in the realm of physical space. Systems that begin with spatial gestures and evolve into repeatable, manufacturable, and enduring objects. And why architects, interior designers, and spatial practitioners should care deeply about them.
Detail as Ephemeral Expression
Let’s begin with a reality check: most bespoke architectural details are never repeated.
Custom joinery is redesigned from scratch for every new fit-out. A wall finish that worked beautifully in one project is scrapped in the next. A pendant light is hand-welded in a rush, with no consideration for scalability. It’s not that these details lack merit, in fact, it’s often the opposite. They’re too bespoke, too finely resolved, too tied to a singular brief to survive beyond it.
This is a creative loss, but also a cultural one. When we treat these crafted gestures as disposable, we limit their life to a single context and project. We deny ourselves the opportunity to build a spatial language, one that could, with some intention, become a vocabulary.
What If the Detail Could Live On?
Imagine a project where a particular bench becomes a signature element, not just in that one space, but across multiple fit-outs. Where a lighting detail becomes a range. Where the materiality, jointing, and scale are systematised; not for mass production, but for considered reproduction.
This doesn’t mean turning a bespoke element into a soulless SKU. Quite the opposite. It means respecting the intelligence and emotional value of the original design, and amplifying it through structure, repeatability, and craft.
These are the kinds of projects I help studios build: scalable object systems that extend spatial thinking. They’re born from architectural logic, honed through material knowledge, and developed to live longer lives—beyond a single set of plans.
So, What Is a Design System?
A design system, in this context, is the scalable logic behind a beautiful one-off. It’s a methodology for taking a custom spatial element, like a bench, a sconce, a shelving module, and evolving it into a repeatable, adaptable, and technically resolved product.
A true design system has:
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A material strategy: What’s it made from, and why? Can this material be sourced again? Is it site-specific or universal?
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A dimensional logic: Can it be modular? How does it relate to other elements?
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Manufacturing intent: Who makes it? Can it be costed and specced? Are drawings and tolerances considered?
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Aesthetic DNA: Does it retain the feel, form, and story of the original?
In short, it’s the difference between a one-off expression and a repeatable design language.
To date, I’ve built my career around this concept. One of the best examples of this comes from my work at Arup, where I helped develop the Artus Raft System, a compact HVAC ceiling unit that merged engineering logic with architectural clarity. Originally designed for a single office retrofit, it’s now a system used globally because it was designed as a system from the outset.
Likewise, the MUNCH furniture series, which began as a gallery commission in Oslo, evolved into a suite of street furniture and public seating for Vestre. What started as a one-off concept became a modular offering, not by accident, but through intentional and ambitious design translation.
From the Studio Bench to the Street
The power of systematising design lies in its potential to extend your ideas without compromising their integrity. And, increasingly, this matters, not just for architects’, interior designers or engineers reputations or project efficiency, but for sustainability.
We cannot afford to keep designing from scratch. Good design deserves to live longer. To be specified again. To become a chapter in a larger material and spatial narrative.
And yet, many architecture and interior studios lack the in-house capability to make that leap from bespoke to reproducible. They know the form, the feeling, the detail. But they don’t always have the time or tooling to resolve it for manufacturing, cost analysis, or distribution.
An Invitation to Collaborate
I built Webster Design Office to do exactly this.
To help studios scale the things they already do beautifully, not by diluting them, but by giving them legs. I work alongside architects, interior designers, developers and gallerists to take custom objects, benches, handles, acoustic panels, lighting, and develop them into manufacturable, story-driven systems.
This might look like:
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A 10-week sprint to develop your signature detail into a limited-run range
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A quiet collaboration where I ghost-develop production specs behind your studio’s lead
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A co-creation that results in a gallery release, a street furniture series, or an interior system
It’s not about productising your practice. It’s about preserving its intelligence, and ensuring the best details live on.
Final Thought
If you have a detail clients keep asking about …
If there’s a gesture in your interiors you wish you could repeat, refine, extend …
If you’ve ever thought this could be a product but didn’t know where to begin ...
Let’s talk.
Because a good idea doesn’t have to end when the project does. Sometimes, the detail is just the beginning.
Peter Webster
pw@websterp.com