Interior Element’s office has all the things that you would expect from a design firm.
The floor-to-ceiling windows on the second floor of Bailey South provide a unique vantage point of the Coal Pit below and the Winston-Salem skyline above. Upon entering their doors, you are met with sleek, concrete flooring contrasted with modern lighting, warm wooden accents, and subtle flashes of greenery.
These elements tie Interior Elements into its new home in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The commercial furniture design firm opened in Bailey South in the iQ in September of 2025. Interior Elements creates strategic and tailored workplace solutions for its clients, ranging from custom furniture to architectural wall installations.
While polished and contemporary, Interior Element’s iQ office also feels like a living room, centering around a toffee-colored sectional with fluffy throw pillows and white accent chairs. The space prompts clients to sit down, slow down, and get comfortable.
The team at Interior Elements prides themselves on designing concepts that are stylish, functional, and offer real workplace solutions. While aesthetics are certainly part of the equation, creating spaces that prompt comfort and creativity goes beyond what the eye immediately sees.
As a company, Interior Elements focuses on providing comfort, authenticity, and connection–in both its projects for clients and its own company culture. These values set the firm apart in an industry that often feels transactional and are what drew the company to the innovative and collaborative nature of the iQ in the first place.
Where Functionality Meets Style
When clients step inside Interior Element’s Winston-Salem office, they are fully immersed in a representation of Interior Elements’ expertise and values at work. From a glass-encased meeting room with aerodynamic design to a comfortable couch setup, the company’s office space lends itself to both work and leisure.
“Our office space prioritizes connection and functionality,” Don Rush says. Rush is the executive vice president of North Carolina for Interior Elements. With over fifteen years of experience in the commercial furniture industry, he is responsible for managing and developing the North Carolina market, which now includes the Winston-Salem location.
If Interior Elements’ designers need a space to focus on individual work, desks are readily available. If the team is brainstorming a design execution, meeting rooms provide the ideal space for collaboration. If the team is presenting, they all gather in the communal living room, where a large screen is available for presentations.
“We want people to work how they need to work, and that can shift from day to day,” Rush says.
Rush refers to this design concept as creating multi-faceted “resi-mercial” spaces that are equal parts commercial and residential and provide flexibility for workers. It’s a concept that holds true within their own office, but also extends to a growing need that many of their clients face.
A resi-mercial office space offers options for large- and small-scale meeting rooms, but also provides ample space for workplace breaks, lunches, and staff socializing. As many of Interior Elements’ clients are navigating the return of employees to in-person work and face changing ideas of how people work best, optimizing spaces for this level of comfort is becoming a necessity.
“Offices must reenvision the diverse needs of employees, whether that’s standing, sitting, or making space for virtual and in-person meetings,” Rush says.
Discerning these specific needs takes time, communication, and a detailed understanding of how individual workplaces operate. The Interior Elements team adopts a hands-on approach to meeting these needs.
Interior Element’s White Glove Approach
The Interior Elements team partners with corporate clients across the nation, delivering furniture solutions that span the full spectrum of complexity and scale—from intimate, small-scale spaces to comprehensive, entire-building projects. Interior Elements’ expertise includes projects in commercial office environments, healthcare systems, higher education campuses, K-12 facilities, and government institutions. Regardless of the project, the team provides a streamlined experience that is tailored to the modern workplace, while prioritizing the humanity of the workforce that will use the space.
“So much of our industry has become transaction-based,” Rush says. “We prioritize relationships above all else. We want our clients to feel known and have the assurance that they can call any time and reach the same person they’ve been working with.”
While many commercial furniture design firms will have a series of teams and administrative contacts that the client filters through, Interior Elements envisions the process as a cohesive whole, managed by the same team from start to finish.
“We want an intimate feel from stem to stern,” Rush says. “When you streamline the communication, it not only strengthens the bond between our team and the client, but the vision remains at the forefront throughout the process.”
Creating that cohesive experience involves the whole team. The Interior Elements sales team has decades of experience and knowledge to lean on, but they feel it’s paramount to include the designer in every step of the process. When the same designer is assigned to a space from a project’s concept through installation, that designer’s attachment and commitment to its execution is strengthened. The focus shifts from execution to a proactive approach to keep the project budget-oriented and solution-centered.
“The old model in commercial furniture was to treat designers like a vendor. At Interior Elements, we place our designers on a pedestal, having them act as creative project managers,” Rush says. “Our clients can really feel the difference.”
Interior Elements works with some of the leading manufacturing partners in the industry to provide furnishings for their designs. The Interior Elements team works closely with HNI, whose extensive brand portfolio currently includes Allsteel, Gunlocke, Kimball, National, HBF, HON, and–soon–Steelcase. Interior Elements’ total portfolio covers over one hundred manufacturers, including both global partners and local manufacturers, all vetted for dependability and sustainability.
“We want to provide our clients with the best of the best when it comes to curating manufacturers that also align with our values,” Rush says.
Feeling at Home in the iQ
Relationships and collaboration were also on the mind when Interior Elements was looking at opening an office in Winston-Salem. The company’s leadership was attracted to the iQ because of the history and progress of the innovation district, seeing how the area was poised for rapid growth.
The design company’s position in Bailey South surrounds them with cutting-edge, value-centric companies like The Variable, Encore Bank, and Elemance. Like-minded companies encourage collaboration and push the overarching community forward. The leadership of Interior Elements recognized the value and momentum of being part of a community that is different by design and knew that the iQ was the home for their next office.
“More and more companies are taking notice of Winston-Salem, and we feel like we’re getting here at the precipice of massive growth and progress,” Rush says.
In addition to its office in Winston-Salem, Interior Elements has offices in multiple states, including Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, and North Carolina. Though the company is based in the Southeast, Interior Elements works with clients across the United States. The Winston-Salem team travels as needed for projects and has taken on clients in cities including New York and San Francisco, often drawing inspiration from the places they work.
“Every city has its own culture and energy, and we try to infuse that energy into our designs,” Rush says. “Winston-Salem has this undeniable artistic and creative energy, and we really wanted to be a part of that.”
The company’s new home in the iQ provides ongoing inspiration for the staff. As the last significant historic building in the innovation district to be revitalized, Bailey South is a portrait of where modernity meets preservation. Because of the size of the building, developer Front Street Capital determined that the best use of the space was to merge a more modern building into the historic one. Today, Bailey South has a unique blend of modern and historic aspects, with contemporary elements interwoven with original features.
This contrast resonates with the Interior Elements design team, which frequently works with repurposed buildings, toeing that line between past, present, and future.
“Repurposed buildings are some of our most fun projects. We get to keep some of the good ol’ bones to capture the history of a particular area but keep looking forward. They make some of the best canvases to work with,” Rush says.
By locating in the iQ, Interior Elements gets to participate in the growing community downtown. The team is frequently seen around their favorite spots in the iQ, including Barcelona Burger, Krankies Coffee, Sushi Rosé and has even hosted a few events at Incendiary directly below their office. They’re planning to host their annual Christmas gathering at the recently-opened Tuscani.
“Being part of the Innovation Quarter has brought us into the buzzing energy that originally drew us to Winston-Salem,” says Rush.
When People Value People
The relational nature of Interior Elements’ interactions with their clients extends from the company’s internal culture. The Winston-Salem team is incredibly close-knit, with an atmosphere that focuses on long-term relationships and mentorship.
“We’ve got a family-like culture. We say ‘I love you’ a lot,” Rush says.
One way the team demonstrates that closeness is through a prevalent nickname culture. Company president, Bryan Mullins, signs off his emails with the distinctive nickname “Bam Bam.” Rush’s nickname is “Junkyard Dog” because of his tenacity. These nicknames trace back to the company’s owner Ben Chappell, who at the company’s inception wanted it to be culturally distinct. He began by assigning the original staff wrestling nicknames and the naming convention has never faded.
While there were only eight employees when Rush first started at the company in 2011, the staff count is now nearing one hundred across all locations. Even with the growth, the company’s values remain central across all of the offices.
“Each office has its own small culture, but the company culture overall still feels cohesive,” Rush says.
For Rush, the overall team at Interior Elements can be characterized by three values: drive, authenticity, and grit. Those values make the company a place that people like to work.
“People want to work with people who strive to get better every day both personally and professionally. That’s why I love working here,” Rush says.
Learn more about some of the other tenants in Bailey South and keep up with what’s happening in the iQ community in the Updates section of the iQ website.
