What is Interior Architecture?

Interior architecture is a design profession where interior architects focus on creating or redefining interior environments within buildings in ways that focus on structural, functional, and atmospheric architectural elements that foster occupant wellbeing.

Introduction to Interior Architecture

Interior architecture is more than merely designing spaces; it is about creating environments that engage all human senses and evoke emotional response. It is a multidisciplinary field that combines aspects of architecture, interior design, industrial design, and psychology to create spaces that are not only visually appealing but also functional and meaningful for the people who use them. Design practitioners must consider a wide range of factors when creating a space, including the needs and preferences of the users, the intended purpose of the space, and the budget available for the project.

What Do Interior Architects Do?

When designing, it is important for interior architects to conceptualize and build environmental space for both atmospheric and structural qualities. In this discipline, reconfiguring spatial architectural features like walls, windows, and doors is as important as properly designing for furniture placement, color, and other vital design aspects. In fact, this is a primary difference between interior design and interior architecture:

• Interior Design: focuses on the design of interior space by creating atmospheres for occupant wellbeing and comfort by designing for interior elements as furnishings, colors, lighting, and space planning.

• Interior Architecture: focuses on the design of interior architectural space by designing for structure and placement of walls, windows, and doors while also incorporating interior design as well.

For example, a restaurant interior architectural design would focus on both atmosphere and function in ways that make dining better through optimized lighting, acoustic, and haptic stimuli, and in ways that optimize the restaurant's layout and structure to boost occupant flow and space planning. For this reason, interior architecture is a great career that can truly redefine a built space by not only designing for aspects like color, sound, or texture but also by designing for circulation, wayfinding, or functional needs all according to building code in ways that bring forward the best aesthetic and function within a building.

Selecting an Educational Pathway for Interior Architecture

During academic study to become an interior architect, many university programs focus on aspects like principles of interior design, heating and plumbing, interior decoration, structural elements, ventilation, and window/door placement, as well as space planning. Then, once one's educational foundation is formed by earning a Bachelor's and optional Master's Degree in Architecture or Interior Architecture that is accredited by the NAAB or the CIDA, it is important to continue one's education as new technologies and design-research findings emerge that affect the field. Once such educational pathway for interior architects to hone their practice is through direct 1:1 mentorship or ongoing research, certification, and skills development to elevate use of latest computer programs for cutting-edge interior architectural design. Not only is it important to know how to design with your best ideas, but it is also important to know how to get your best ideas approved and built to create truly memorable projects.

Skills Needed for the Future of Interior Architecture

Yes, it important to design aesthetically, functionally, and with great meaning; however, one must not stop there. As an interior architect is is vital to learn how to conceptualize and design spaces with great creativity, accuracy, and beauty in ways that are innovative and heighten the well-being and comfort of building inhabitants. For this reason, it is wise to also specialize in sensory design for architecture so one deeply understands how design decisions impact users, and so one can innovate to elevate how interior architecture can uplift occupant wellbeing.

Ideal Career Focus for Interior Architects

As an interior architect it is important to not only focus on aesthetic and functional project needs to help clients elevate interior building spaces, but it is also important to design those interior spaces optimally for the occupants they will serve. As an interior architect, one may work within a department of an architecture or interior design firm, or one may have their own firm by which to work with clients on transformative projects. Interior architects work on many building types including healthcare, workplace, educational, retail, and even cultural environments. It is important to consider interior architecture as an important part of proper design for environments where the right design decision matters, and there is always imperative to innovate design to enhance building occupant well-being, comfort, and health.

Innovation Matters for Interior Architecture

When designing, it is important to integrate one's most creative and out-of-the-box ideas to rethink and improve how people live, work, heal, and play within environments. For this reason, innovative design thinking matters within interior architecture. It is not only what drives progress and pushes boundaries in the field, but it is also what helps humanity to improve quality of life for people. Yet, many designers struggle to push their projects into truly creative realms of innovation because such ideas often are eliminated due to budget constraints.

Yet, innovation is essential for the advancement of society and should not always be tossed away due to financial limits. There are ways to design interior architecture that are cost-effective and still push boundaries in terms of creativity and innovation. To help ensure your best innovative design ideas become "sticky" and are built as originally intended, it is best to position such innovations to clients as an investment. By presenting how and why a project's innovations return ROI for clients and end-users is key to gaining their approval and support.

How to Present 'Innovation ROI' to Clients

Innovation ROI (return on investment) is a critical factor not only for gaining client approval and support but also for thinking most strategically about your design idea as a solution. To do this, simply design interior architecture with great focus on helping occupants to reach desired outcomes. Thus, if designing a workplace, innovate the interior architecture in ways that significantly improve well-being, productivity, and creativity. This provides tangible ROI for your client, as the interior architectural design actually nurtures both occupant and business growth within the space. So when presenting your most innovative ideas for your interior architecture project, be sure to emphasize how your innovative idea will deliver wanted results for your client and future building occupants. This way of thinking about architectural design will make your best innovative ideas "sticky" as they are actualized, from ideation to built form.

How to Design Innovation as a Client Investment

Sensory Design Zones are a vital tool you can use to design interior architectural innovation, to be positioned as a "client investment" that returns ROI. What are Sensory Design Zones? These zones are key moments within the architectural journey where ROI is made tangible to clients. Such Sensory Design Zones use multisensory design to actually create the design innovation that yields such a return. For example, in workplace design, one can create space that uses visual, aural, olfactory, temperature, and even kinesthetic senses to create moments of stress relief or to foster worker creativity at "just the right time" during the occupant's journey. For instance, if a person is typing on their computer in their office, an interior window could open at a certain time of day to connect them with others in their work area. This provides needed stress reduction for busy employees that may need to take a new kind of "coffee break". Similarly, if that same person uses this "break time" for social interaction at a certain time during their workflow, the likelihood of colleague innovation-collaboration greatly increases. Thus, when interior architecture is properly designed, it can help building occupants to gain just the right advantage at just the right time. This results in nurturing the best outcomes for building occupants because design innovation was positioned as a client investment from the beginning of the architectural design process.

From Concept Design Idea to Built Innovation

Often, architectural practitioners mention the challenge of creating innovation that is "sticky". Why? Because one's best, most creative design ideas are put forth during the early stages of the concept design, they later are stripped away due to budget constraints. This happens because such design innovations were not positioned within the context of ROI. Thus, when designing an interior architecture project, be sure to target the two types of ROI for each Sensory Zone you create, and then present each Sensory Design Zone by showcasing those ROI benefits. Remember: ROI within each Sensory Design Zone can and should aim to bring tangible benefits for not only the client but also the building occupant. In the workplace design example, you can see how each interior window between offices "connects" colleague interaction at just the right time of day to encourage stress-reduction and innovation-collaboration. This makes this new, more innovative office design (with interconnecting windows between offices) an innovation that grows business revenue for the overarching organization that inhabits the space. So as you design, be sure to think in terms of client and occupant ROI from the beginning—even during the earliest concept design phases.

Conclusion

Interior architecture is filled with great opportunity to create lasting impact and bring creativity to life. It is a field where your imagination can truly flourish and leave a mark on future building occupants. As you design such interior spaces, remember to push design boundaries in ways that enhance functionality and aesthetics while also considering the overall well-being of those who will interact with the space. And to truly innovate, be sure to present how your ideas will bring tangible positive results for stakeholders. In this way, your ideas will "take flight" as they are realized in built form. As an environmental design practitioner, be sure to ask yourself: How can this new design idea be made even better by unlocking other ways it can benefit occupants? And how can these benefits translate into ROI for my client? By asking such questions as you design, your interior architecture projects will become more than design that simply looks good. They will become designs that deliver benefits on many levels, and this will turn you into an in-demand environmental designer.