When it comes to equating design with energetic balance, harmony, and holism, Clodagh was always forward-thinking. Early on in her illustrious 40-year career, she integrated feng shui, biophilia, and chroma- and aromatherapy into her interiors, long before the concepts had reached mass acceptance. It was always intuitive for her to address all five senses when she furnished a room or laid out its architecture, and from the earliest age growing up in Ireland, she tuned in to nature’s healing powers.

Clodagh’s recent projects include the Six Senses Kaplankaya Resort and Spa—including its moon garden and meditation labyrinth—in Turkey; the Crossing, luxury riverfront apartments in Washington, D.C., with a focus on intentional living; and the public and residential spaces for architect Rem Koolhaas’s Avery Condominiums in San Francisco. Last year her Life in Balance Spa at Miraval Austin was named North America’s Best Resort Spa by the World Spa Awards. Also an avid product designer, Clodagh has created carpets, bedding, fixtures, hardware, lighting, and outdoor furniture, and has an eponymous collection of indoor/outdoor fabrics with Perennials.

The holistically-minded designer is currently considering whether to create an essential oil from gorse, a sweetly aromatic, bee-loving plant that thrives in her native country, where it symbolizes love and fertility. As she notes, “I was born in Ireland, in a country house that once belonged to Oscar Wilde in County Mayo, and mystics often called on my mother there, particularly when someone was ill. An indelible memory from my teenage years is of one of these old men telling me that I would grow up to be a healer, but not in the medicinal sense. I guess I took him at his word.”

How, ideally, would you like people to react when they walk into a space you’ve created?
I’d like them to feel embraced. By that I mean I’d like them to experience a sense of contentment. I’d also like them to clue into the stillness and the movement inherent in all our work, even if they receive it on a subliminal level. To use a musical analogy, to appreciate the notes as well as the silence between them.