Interior Design

The answer is this; interior design is about so much more than ‘what looks right’. It is about taking a holistic view of the way that individuals use and enjoy the spaces that they inhabit. It is about finding and creating a cohesive answer to a set of problems and dressing the solution so as to unify and strengthen our experience of the space. Many people understand this and that they do not have the necessary skills to tackle the job themselves. And so there is the need for professional interior designers.

Good interior design adds a new dimension to a space. It can increase our efficiency in the way we go about our daily lives and it adds depth, understanding and meaning to the built environment. Thoughtful and well-crafted design makes a space easier to understand and experiencing such a space lifts the spirit, too. It is, therefore, not just about the aesthetic; it is a practical and philosophical discipline....

Every single part of an interior has a job to do and it needs to be fit for purpose – but each part also has aesthetic properties as well as practical ones. The practical considerations may well define our choices to a great degree, but there will usually still be some flexibility in that choice, and this is where our imagination and creativity can be used to good effect, particularly with regard to our choice of surface treatment....

Current ways of working and living will change, and whether theses changes turn out to be sudden and dramatic or slower and more subtle, changes in lifestyle will mean that designers are required to navigate new landscapes and propose alternative routes for clients to allow them to meet their commitments as part of the new global, responsible society, whilst still maintaining a sense of wellbeing derived from their immediate surroundings.

This text has been extracted from:
The Fundamentals of Interior Design by Simon Dodsworth
It is reproduced with kind permission from AVA Publishing