Designer Interview Series
How Designers Choose Timber Flooring: A Conversation with Spatial Studio’s Kristen Basra
Award-winning Auckland interior designer Kristen Basra shares her design philosophy, her process for selecting materials, and why engineered timber flooring is foundational to exceptional residential interiors.
About Kristen Basra
Kristen Basra is the Creative Director of Spatial Studio — an award-winning Auckland interior design practice known for creating thoughtful, liveable residential spaces. Recognised by Architecture Now as an Emerging Design Professional, Kristen brings a uniquely human-centred approach to every project she undertakes.
Her work spans high-end residential renovations and new builds across Auckland, with a particular focus on spaces that balance refined aesthetics with genuine everyday functionality. Kristen was also involved in creating the Coco engineered oak flooring products — an exclusive Vienna Woods range available in wide plank and herringbone formats.
The Interview Series
We sat down with Kristen across four conversations — exploring her design philosophy, how she approaches material selection, what she looks for in a flooring supplier, and how real life shapes great design.
Part One
Timeless Design & The Role of Flooring
Kristen shares the design philosophy behind Spatial Studio’s acclaimed work — and why creating timeless, liveable spaces starts with getting the foundational materials right. She discusses how she approaches high-end residential projects and why flooring is always one of the first decisions she makes.
Part Two
Designing for How People Actually Live
What makes a home truly liveable? Kristen explores how thoughtful design begins with understanding how people actually live — not just how a space looks. She shares how this human-centred approach shapes everything from layout through to material selection, with flooring as the canvas that carries daily life.
Part Three
A Designer’s First Impression of Vienna Woods
What stands out when a designer first encounters a truly considered flooring range? Kristen shares her experience discovering the Vienna Woods collection — and why the breadth, quality, and consistency of options opened up genuine creative freedom for specifying across entire projects with confidence.
Part Four
How Motherhood Changed Her Approach to Design
How does real life shape great design? In this final conversation Kristen reflects on how becoming a mother transformed her perspective — and how that shift now influences the way she designs homes for clients. From durability and practicality to how children interact with spaces, lived experience leads to better design decisions.
How Interior Designers Select Timber Flooring
For architects and interior designers specifying flooring in New Zealand, the decision goes far beyond colour and format. As Kristen explains throughout this series, the most important factors are consistency of quality across the range, a supplier who understands the specification process, and products that perform as well as they look — years after installation.
Engineered European oak has become the material of choice for high-end residential design in New Zealand. Its dimensional stability, wear layer depth, and breadth of available finishes make it ideal across both floating and glue-down applications — including over in-slab hydronic heating systems increasingly common in Auckland new builds.
Vienna Woods works closely with architects, interior designers, and builders across New Zealand — providing technical documentation, samples, and project-specific advice for every specification. Our range includes FSC Chain of Custody certified European oak across all major collections.
What Designers Look for in a Flooring Supplier
- Range depth — enough variation in tone, format, and finish to specify with confidence across different project typologies
- Consistent quality — every board from the same batch should look and perform to the same standard
- Technical support — a supplier who understands installation, acoustic requirements, and subfloor prep as well as aesthetics
- Reliable supply — projects depend on flooring arriving on time; delays cascade through the entire build programme
- Collaborative approach — the best supplier relationships are partnerships, not transactions
Engineered Oak in High-End NZ Residential Design
Slow-grown European oak offers a density and grain character that plantation timbers simply can’t replicate. Combined with a multi-layer engineered core, it remains dimensionally stable across the humidity variations typical in New Zealand homes — from Auckland’s coastal humidity through to the drier conditions found further south.
Vienna Woods sources exclusively from leading European manufacturers in Austria and the Netherlands — including Admonter (Austria) and Flamingo (Netherlands) — under strict FSC forestry and production standards. Every product in our range is available with full technical documentation suitable for specification and consent purposes.
Work With Vienna Woods
Specify with confidence. Request samples or talk to our team.
We supply engineered timber flooring to architects, interior designers, and builders across New Zealand. Technical docs, samples, and project advice available.