Q&A: Dean Keyworth Awards Shortlister

Dean Keyworth founded Armstrong Keyworth in 1997. Armstrong Keyworth offers a wide range of services from informal design consultancy to full project management, with work featured in House and Garden, Ideal Home and many other publications.  Dean is Past President of the BIID. In 2022 RIBA published Dean's first book The New Country: City style. 

We asked Dean about his experience as on the Shortlisting Panel for BIID Interior Design Awards and why site assessments are so important.

What do you look for when shortlisting projects for the awards?

I always look for an element of a project that raises the bar of design in some way, whether it be originality, outstanding quality or a particularly successful meeting of the client’s brief.  As a judge, it is very important to keep one’s own personal taste to one side and concentrating on these factors helps with impartiality.

Why do you think it is important to do site visits as part of the judging process?

No matter how good the photography, there is no substitute for seeing a project in real life.  One can really judge the proportions of the interiors in question, see how the colour scheme works in day light and, most importantly, inspect the quality of the finishes and ensure they are fit for purpose.  Also, often a striking detail will emerge from chatting to the designer on site that they did not mention in the written entry.  For example, I was very impressed by the fact that entrance hall mural in an Edinburgh house contained only birds that could be spotted in the garden.  For me, this level of thought about the clients and their home really made a difference to the entry.

Have you met any clients at site visits and what has their response/feedback been?

It is lovely to meet the clients in their own home or commercial premises and one can tell straight away that the brief has been met (or indeed exceeded) by the way the the client and designer interact.  I also love to hear about details the client particularly likes and would never have thought of without the designer.

The projects in each category can be wide ranging, how do you decide who to shortlist when there could be a large commercial vs a small residential?

This is of course a challenging aspect to judging the BIID Awards, as the range of projects within a geographical area can be very wide. However quality does shine regardless of the scale of the project. 

What advice would you give to anyone working on their entry this year?

If you are proud of a project, don’t hesitate to enter it, even if it is a small, low budget one.  Every submission is judged on merit and we can be equally impressed by the ingenuity used to create a great scheme on a shoestring as we are by huge amounts spent on lavish mansions or public buildings.  Also, for any type of entry, tell the judges as much as you can about the clients and the brief.  The more detail we have, the better we can assess how well the brief has been met. 

What has been your takeaway from your role in the awards?

Judging, especially the site visits, is time consuming, but very rewarding. Even though I have been designing for 27 years, I am still learning every day and love meeting other designers at their projects.