Who is an interior designer?
Presumption,
There is a lot of presumption about this profession especially in North America. The name suggests an interior designer is a person whom deals with how the inner part of a space will look like and that leads us to think an interior designer is a professional in selecting wall color, floor finishes, light fixtures, plumbing fixtures, furniture, furniture fabric and etc. The funniest part is, TV programs really helping to fuel this wrong presumption but to tell you the truth, profession of interior design is much more than that. What we have mentioned above is just one tenth (1/10) of interior designer’s specialty.
We will go deeper in to the topic of what and interior designer do in a latter post but right now let’s stick to the main topic and see where the problem is coming from.
Source of the presumption
So the question is why do people think so less of interior designers? The answer lies in the word itself.
The best word to describe this profession is “interior architect” but due to the copyright problems and some other matters, this vast profession had to stick with “interior designer”.
If we could introduce ourselves as “interior architects”, then the perspective of public towards this profession would be different. What do you think?
Then public might thought the responsibilities of this profession, starts from the inner most surface of the outer most surface (meaning from the interior face of the exterior wall) on word. It includes space planning (wall location and structure, floors shape and structure, circulation…), lighting design, electrical planning, cross discipline design, construction documentation, F. F. & E. (furniture, fixture and equipment) and etc.
Shocking isn’t it?
That is what exactly and interior designer is in Canada. We do have a massive problem in our professional society. We are not cohesive, we are not united, everyone can call him/herself an interior designer because there is no set of boundaries and no one cares. This major problem causes highly educated professional, like us, suffer the most in this filed.
Who is an Interior Designer then?
An interior designer is a problem solver with the skills in the relationship of human and interior spaces. It is very important for and interior designer to enhance and improve the quality of one’s living and interaction with any space (of the interior kind) and maximizes the use of that space.
To be continue………
