Rhode Island has plenty of interior designers, architects, industrial designers and Web artists. But it has no other firms quite like Wooding Design, a small family-owned company with expertise in all those fields – and a nearly 30-year record of innovation.

The firm, whose portfolio includes both commercial and residential projects, as well as furniture, lighting, flatware and corporate Web sites, operates on a European design philosophy, where the look and feel of everything at a company – whether it’s a physical store, the products it carries or the Web site – helps create the business’s image.

And the key to that, say owners JoAnn and Peter Wooding, is listening to a client’s needs.

With a client such as KVH Industries, a Middletown-based communications and navigation company that is currently undergoing an extensive renovation designed by Wooding, that means understanding the workflow of engineers.

At a private residence in Portsmouth, that could mean designing a home that is equipped to handle all of a teenager’s friends who come over on the weekends.

“It’s important that the designer is an advocate for the client, in that he’s not just putting on the table a formula for design and pushing it on you,” Peter Wooding said.

Many of the general philosophies practiced at Wooding were born early in Peter Wooding’s career, when he was working at Herman Miller Design Research. There, the focus was on the way people worked and how that should affect the operation and design of the office.

That company invented the first “open-plan” office system in the 1960s, and it has built a global brand with office furnishings based on efficiency, comfort, productivity and usability.

In 1978, Peter and his wife struck out on their own, creating Wooding Design and focusing primarily on interior design and architecture and industrial design.

Throughout the years, Wooding has landed several marquee projects, including the award-winning rehabilitation of Providence’s Union Station railroad terminal into a headquarters for Cookson America.

The company also designed a number of products that were picked up by commercial clients. The items, which put a focus on usability, include chairs that have retractable arms that a laptop could be placed upon.

Many of the products have been put into commercial production by companies such as Nessen Lighting. However, JoAnn Wooding said, often the products are designed for use by a specific client before it becomes apparent that it would have value for a wide range of people.

“There are times when our prototypical products or environments lead to something that can be considered for mass production,” she said.

While the company has always had a broad range of expertise, it was able to expand that range further in 2003 when the Woodings’ son, Rob, came onboard.

Rob Wooding had an architecture and digital media business in San Francisco, and when he returned to Rhode Island, he was able to take experiences, including interior design projects for Wired Magazine and other technology-driven companies, and apply them to the local market.

His experience in digital media allowed the firm to expand its services, with Rob designing and producing Web sites, further helping a client establish a brand born out of design.

Peter also played a role in a Rhode Island School of Design initiative – the “Universal Kitchen” – that focused on creating a space for people of all ages and physical abilities.

First exhibited at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in the Smithsonian Institution in 1998, the project featured ideas such as sinks located directly next to stove tops – designed to cut down on scalding and to make the cooking experience easier on elderly people. It also designed spaces for younger apartment-dwellers looking to maximize the space they got out of their units.

The Woodings speak highly of the initiative, which they said fits into the objectives of the firm.

But despite the accolades and high-profile projects bestowed upon their firm, the Woodings want it to be clear that their company is not just a high-end, ego-driven designer. Just as it works in many disciplines, it works across all different price points and project scopes.

“The real challenge is to design something great on a smaller budget,” JoAnn Wooding said. “Sometimes, that’s really fun.”

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