The Bold And The Beautiful

Colour rules in this coolly glamorous edinburgh pad

- Catherine Coyle

Sam Buckley’s home is a celebration of all the things he loves. It’s how all homes should be – a true reflection of our personality and our passions, as well as a conduit to helping us to live our lives simply and straightforwardly. His philosophy combines the notion that the things we choose to surround ourselves with can be beautiful and bold and life-affirming but they must also enhance the way we live. “For me,” he says, “when it comes to design, it has got to work well and look amazing.”

Buckley has the Italian designers of the 1950s to thanks for that concept. The likes of Castiglioni, Ponti, Sottsass, and Mollino all used engineering principles to create buildings, cars, and pieces of furniture with sound architectural origins, while injecting their designs with colour, ornamentation, and life. Buckley has encountered their work at close quarters: as a qualified architectural technician (having studied at Edinburgh University), he went to Milan after he graduated to do a Masters in interior design. “It’s where all of the designers I respect come from,” he explains.

Studying at the Scuola Politecnica di Design appealed because the course combined interior design and architecture with allowing the students to undertake world-class internships, rather than being desk-bound writing dissertations. “I worked at Adidas HQ in Germany for six months for my final project,” he recalls. “It allowed me to use my skills in commercial design and corporate branding, as well as fashion and architecture. It showed me that I like to problem-solve and that I’m good at space planning but that I enjoy the aesthetic, more glamorous side that interior design offers.”