Foreword 

As part of its commitment to research-based standards development, each of the past several years, the Council for Interior Design Accreditation (CIDA) has scanned the environment, looking for data, trends, and other information as to what designers - and therefore students - will need to know to be prepared and successful in practice. Scans like these of economic, demographic, environmental, and technological trends are invaluable for charting the future in increasingly uncertain times.

But so too is looking deeply into the interior design profession itself, to what it might become over the coming years. That was the objective of this Future Vision 2020-21 - a thoughtful look at what interior design practitioners, educators, and allies think, feel, and believe about the profession and what that might mean for the early years of the field’s second century.

The pandemic disruption of 2020 led to a much-extended process - from an originally-scheduled weekend event to a 14-month investigation - enabling CIDA to cast a much wider net for input from inside, adjacent to, and outside interior design and to be more contemplative about what we heard.

CIDA intends to do two things with this report -

• Use it to facilitate a more holistic review of accreditation standards, and

• broadly distribute it, thus making findings available to constituents and others in the professions for use in their own strategic visioning.

It looks like the field of interior design is on the precipice of significant change. Of course, all fields evolve over time, typically in response to external disruptions in supply, demand, workforce, and/or technology. The interior design field is no exception, evolving with ever-increasing knowledge and subsequent impact on people and the environment. The profession has progressed with accredited higher education, the NCIDQ examination and, in many cases, legal recognition to signify competency.

This next change, addressed here, will be very different. It won't be triggered by external disruption as much as evolution in what interior designers themselves have come to think, feel, and believe about the role of their profession.

It's about the quality of life, rather than quality of space.

As part of this project, 68 thought leaders were surveyed in and around the interior design field, posing a single question. "What is the highest and best purpose of interior design?" Their answers were remarkably consistent and unambiguous. The purpose of interior design is to enhance people's experience and quality of life.

Of course, it's a reasonable leap from quality of space to quality of life. Science and the growing body of knowledge is proving the impact of space and all its attributes on the human experience. The thought leaders' responses to the survey featured 26 central ideas - 70% of which were related to end users: their experiences, quality of life, health, relationships, spirit, performance, resilience, mindset, grace, happiness, and love.

Four more central ideas were even more aspirational: humanity, inclusiveness, justice, equality. Only four central ideas in the respondent's answers were related to space - namely, comfort, functionality, life, safety, and quality.

The shift in designers' ambitions is consistent with changes in generational issues and perspectives.

Research suggest that today's students embody an unprecedented mix of ambition and social consciousness. Consider their real-world experiences: recession, crippling student debt, social injustice, climate change, the pandemic, and hyper-partisanship.

The shift will likely bring a redefinition of interior design itself.

The predominant definition of interior design within the field was crafted by the Council of Interior Design Qualification, primarily to evolve and further delineate the scope of practice, and is referenced by many organizations, including CIDA.

Here is the abbreviated version. (All of the words in the next paragraph are accurate and we acknowledge the efficacy of the NCIDQ exam and the potential for interior design licensure. As times goes by, credentialing, licensure, and scope of work will evolve.)

“Interior design encompasses the analysis, planning, design, documentation, and management of interior non-structural/non-seismic construction and alteration projects in compliance with applicable building design and construction, fire, life-safety, and energy codes, standards, regulations, and guidelines for the purpose of obtaining a building permit, as allowed by law. Qualified by means of education, experience, and examination, interior designers have a moral and ethical responsibility to protect consumers and occupants through the design of code-compliant, accessible, and inclusive interior environments that address well-being, while considering the complex physical, mental, and emotional needs of people.” (Endnote 1)

People’s well-being and needs frame a list of technical skills and tasks. The full definition spells out 10 scope of service areas (for example, project management, project goals, data collection, existing conditions evaluation) that emphasize technical and professional proficiencies.

The first Future Vision 2020-21 session hinted at where a next- generation/evolved definition might go. After two hours of discussion, a survey of session participants generated the following definition: “The specialized discipline for creating spaces and experiences that allow people, the community, and the planet to thrive.” The aspirational nature of the resulting definition was unexpectedly enlightening. While it does not exclude the technical delineation of the CIDQ definition, it transcends it, moving beyond the conventional regulatory realm to one of impact.

The evolution will likely affect the balance of necessary skills.

To better understand the educational impact of future changes in the interior design profession, we asked a group of design leaders and senior educators what interior designers need to know to design for individuals, relationships, organizations, and society at-large. They offered up 171 different skills and understandings.

Ninety-one (53%) of the skills and understandings were technical, such as universal design, acoustics, and 3-D design composition. Thirty-seven (22%) were professional skills and understandings, such as scheduling, budgeting, and communication. The remaining 43 (25%) were skills and understandings related to end-users, such as social and cultural context, engagement, and productivity drivers, and understanding how work in the office gets done.

Before there’s an outcry: yes, there are absolutely interior designers whose practices reflect a difference balance of skills and understandings. But it’s very likely that the vast majority of the 90,000-plus working designers and design students in North America are undoubtedly working and learning this way. (endnote 2)

 Analysis of Findings

Such a change must challenge the most basic assumptions.

If the ecosystem is to be reorganized around end-user experiences and quality of life, all actors in the built environment, will have to re-examine their foundational beliefs. The interior design profession is no exception.

For example, interior design and related construction services are typically funded by capital budgets. however, if interior design and its impact were widely understood as a way to improve:

•  employee experiences, it could be funded by human resources.

• customer experience, it could be funded by sales.

• patient quality of life, it could be funded by health insurance.

• student outcomes, it could be funded by school operations budgets.

There are undoubtedly a dozen similar assumptions buried within current partnering and funding practices that should be more closely examined. Challenging those assumptions, rather than the practices they engender, would likely open up new possibilities for the whole ecosystem.

The secret weapon of disruption may be end-users themselves.

Of all the actors in the current ecosystem, none engages end-users more than interior designers. Changing the form of that engagement could help transform the ecosystem itself. End-users are sources of immense data. What happens in the space? What could happen in the space? What is needed in the space? The list goes on. Bringing users more fully into the process as true collaborators offers new opportunities for disruption.

The interior designer has a unique role. Interior designers often lead the visioning, programming, and goal setting. They are the primary professional that advocates for the human being in the built environment. The interior designer has an outstanding platform from which to fundamentally shift the design process toward metrics around human performance, health, and wellness. Furthermore, interior designers play a critical role in defining, measuring, and documenting those metrics in a way that equates to ROI and other dominant, system-driven values.

In our third Future Vision 2020-21 session, we asked participants to think about interior design as a brand building a stronger identity. As such, we posed a series of either/or questions. Note the consistency in the group's answers.

These shifts would radically change dynamics within the current ecosystem. Consider how public referenda changed politics and government in California and the UK. Shifting from a representative model, wherein interior designers represent the interests of end-users, to a direct participation model, wherein end-users represent themselves, would be a seismic change. And it would require all other actors in the current system to adjust how they work as well.

This would require going well beyond empathy.

Some years ago, two historians wrote an influential piece about the traditions of philanthropy. (endnote 3) The first tradition, they said, is the most straightforward: philanthropy as relief or, as we more commonly know it, "give a man a fish." The second tradition is philanthropy as improvement or "teach a man to fish." The third is philanthropy as social reform or changing the system that made it difficult for the man to have a fish in the first place. They closed the piece by advocating for a new, fourth tradition: empowering the man to make changes himself in the inequitable system.

Engaging end-users as true collaborators would be akin to this fourth tradition. It would require interior designers to marry expertise in space with expertise in empowering end-users. And this means: moving beyond empathy, according to Bobby Martin, Jr., a visual designer who Fast Company called one of the most creative people in business. (endnote 4)

"For Martin, that's a recognition that one of the biggest design tropes of the past decade - design thinking centered around ‘empathy’ - is a lie,” Fast Company wrote. “A lot of companies based their design ethos in empathy as part of the design thinking process, a 2010s darling of ‘with it’ corporations across industries. Basically, it asked designers to put themselves in their users’ shoes to figure out what those users need.”

“‘Now we’re finding that that’s (BS),’ says Martin. That’s because the practice glosses over the inherent inequity in a system that requires a designer to do the thinking for other people, since the intended user is not designing the product themselves. ‘What’s more important is to go beyond empathy and make sure that the people are creating the work - that are thinking and strategizing - are coming from diverse perspectives.’”

People, not space, must be at the center of the calculation. This is particularly true as we prepare people to re-enter the workplace and similar public spaces post pandemic.

All actors in the ecosystem must be challenged to ask: is it worth my organization's time, effort, energy, and resources to create better experiences for people inside and outside my organization? As any MBA will testify, it is always worth the investment to create better experiences.

The Future Vision 2020-21 team asked Zach Anderson, an expert in building social networks and a special guest in the second Future Vision session, what could help bring about a new ROI. He suggested interior design needs to establish industry standards, similar to LEED and WELL, for how deeply engaged end-users are in the design process.

Interior design can't disrupt the ecosystem unless interior designers can measure what they want everyone to care about. Otherwise, there's a vacuum, into which will rush the status quo.

New Narrative

Narrative is an encapsulation of what people believe about you. It isn’t about what you say as much as it is about what others hear, think, and feel. And ultimately, it dictates what power and influence you wield.

For example, for a very long time, the opposite of mental health was defined as crazy, violent, and/or dangerous. People labeled as mentally unwell were ostracized at best and institutionalized at worst. As a result, professionals working in mental health were limited by the narrative, which often defined who they could help and limited their impact. Over time (and with concerted effort), the narrative around mental health began to evolve. Today, it is more common to acknowledge neurodiversity, and redefine the issues and the labels. Presently, the opposite of mental health is more often defined as unhappy and unfulfilled. Sure, there are still some who are ostracized and institutionalized, but the new narrative challenged the old assumptions and threw open the doors so that millions of people could get help.

This quote makes an important point. It is not that clients are badly served by an outdated story. Nor are interior designers badly served by a faulty narrative. Rather the public itself is denied the degree of assistance to which they are entitled. The stakes may not be quite as high as the mental health narrative, but there are undoubtedly significant costs to perpetuating the wrong interior design narrative.

The answer is to “atomize demand”, said Ethan Decker, a branding expert and a special guest in the third Future Vision session, and Andrew Benedict-Nelson, a strategist for fields and institutions. It is simple. Spread the word to the right audiences. Help end-users understand the full impact of interior design on their experiences and quality of life and they will demand good interior design for their offices, hospitals, schools, and homes.

An example of one such powerful revised narrative strategy can be seen in the United States pharmaceutical industry. For most of modern history, ill people put themselves in the hands of experts (e.g. doctors), who decided what drugs or treatments were appropriate. This is more often than not how interior design works at present. People in offices, hospitals, and schools put themselves in the hands of the building owners, who decide for them what spatial experiences are implemented.

Big Pharma in the United States changed the narrative by advertising directly to end-users. Seemingly our entertainment was sprinkled (and occasionally flooded) with pitches for new drugs and treatments in hopes that individuals would recognize possibilities and begin to take control of their own health decisions by demanding what they want from physicians, hospitals, and clinics. Rather than focus exclusively on the middle-man, Big Pharma communicated directly with prospective patients, thereby empowering them in the process.

Imagine if employees demanded better designed offices, patients demanded better designed hospitals, and students demanded better designed schools, based on the understanding that better design meant true engagement with employees, patients, and students