Designing the future – how one interior designer found his calling in classroom design

From Sims to schools

Kiry’s love for design began early. “Like a lot of designers, it started with The Sims,” he laughs. “I didn’t even care about playing the game properly—I just wanted to design the houses.” Despite his passion, he didn’t initially see interior design as a viable career. He worked in retail for a few years, eventually completing a distance-learning diploma through the National Design Academy before going on to do a degree in interior design at De Montfort University. 

“I didn’t come out of uni thinking I’d be designing classrooms,” he admits. “But now I can’t imagine doing anything else.”

Classroom design ideas

For Kiry, the most surprising thing about designing classrooms is just how rich and creative the work can be. “There’s so much more to it than putting desks in a room,” he explains. “You’re designing experiences.”

One of his first major opportunities to flex his creative muscles came while working on a STEAM extension at a school in Scotland.  “That was a turning point,” he recalls. “I was given a brief, collaborated with the team, and got to go wild with it.”

His design featured blacked-out ceilings, feature lighting, illuminated lockers, and even biophilic walls covered in living plants.

Kiry’s approach is holistic, blending aesthetics with psychology. “It’s not just about how a space looks. It’s about how it makes people feel,” he says. “You want students to walk into a classroom and feel curious before anyone even says a word.”

Enter: The Floor is Lava

One of Kiry’s favourite ideas for classroom design is one he has coined The Floor is Lava—a playful, physics-lab design inspired by the sun, the solar system, and of course, the childhood game where stepping on the floor meant certain doom.

“It started with the school asking for a space-themed graphic,” he explains. “I thought about the sun, then about lava, and suddenly I was designing a lab floor that looked like molten rock. Everyone knows the floor is lava, so it just clicked.”

Although the school ultimately opted for a more budget-friendly version of the design, Kiry doesn’t regret proposing something bold. “Sometimes, it’s just about putting the idea out there. You never know what might inspire someone.”

From a crumbling school building to state-of-the-art learning spaces

Kiry recalls his own school days in Margate, in a crumbling building with little attention to decor. “It wasn’t inspiring,” he says. He never dreamed back then that learning spaces held so much potential, and that working on a school design is so much more than coming up with the best possible classroom layout.

He understands now that educational design has its unique challenges and rewards. “When you’re designing a home, you’re talking to one person or a couple. In schools, you’re designing for a whole ecosystem: teachers, students, staff. And the space has to evolve with them.”

The best classroom layout is one that allows for flexibility. “We try to design classrooms that can change—moveable furniture, multi-use areas, zones for collaboration or quiet work. It’s about giving users options.”

Kiry also values user feedback, something he says Pinnacle encourages. “We’re doing more workshopping now—asking students and staff what they want. We’re not just designing at people; we’re designing with them.”

Creative freedom at Pinnacle

A big part of what keeps Kiry inspired is the culture at Pinnacle. “They’ve always encouraged creativity,” he says. “Even when I was a junior, they made space for new ideas.” That freedom helped him grow into his current role as an interior designer and now he’s being mentored by a senior designer to expand his skills even further.

“They give me room to be bold and that’s rare.”

Inspirations and future dreams

Kiry’s ideas don’t come from a mood board or a manual—they often just hit him in the moment. “Sometimes it’s a phrase, a shape, a mood. The Floor is Lava just popped into my head. Once you have that spark, it snowballs.”

He’s also interested in exploring new technologies to present his work. “We use rendering software like Enscape for walk-throughs, but I’d love to move into VR—let people feel the room before it’s built.”

And though schools haven’t yet commissioned a slide in their entrance halls or climbing walls in staff lounges, Kiry isn’t ruling it out. “That’s the dream. More immersive, interactive, unexpected spaces. Why shouldn’t a school lobby be fun?”

Advice for aspiring designers

So what would Kiry say to someone curious about educational space design?

“Don’t rule it out,” he says. “It might not sound exciting at first—designing classrooms—but the reality is very different. You get to be creative, it’s work with a purpose. You get to help build environments that influence how people feel and learn.”

As for getting started, he recommends looking into a degree or diploma in interior design, and finding ways to get experience—even unpaid. “Email companies. Ask to shadow someone. Do a short course. There’s more than one way in.”

Beyond beige walls

The days of cold, grey, forward-facing classrooms are, if not over, at least being challenged. Designers like Kiry are proving that learning spaces can be vibrant, interactive, and yes, lava-filled.

“At school, I didn’t enjoy learning,” he says. “I wasn’t academic. Maybe if the spaces had looked different, and had been designed to spark imagination, I would’ve felt differently. Now, I get to create the kind of places I wish I’d learned in.”

From The Sims to The Floor is Lava, Kiry Panayiotou is redefining what a classroom can be and helping thousands of students discover that learning doesn’t have to be dull.