The Harmful Potential of Interior Design

by Brad Powell

Interior design is the planning of interior environments suitable for their intended use through the application of knowledge of human-environment interactions. – Brad Powell

While we all consider interior design as a positive force in the world, my definition is sufficiently broad to embrace the fact that interior design is of sufficient force and effect that its misapplication may produce considerable harm. Moreover, by its very nature, the interior environment, by design, can be, and has been, used to intentionally produce significant injury. This I suggest is the reason that we need some form of practice-act legislation for interior design. With a regulated profession we have safeguards against incompetence, and ethical rules to shield us against the “unethical” actions of competent professionals.

 … the environments we create are important shields against many adverse forces of nature, but they bring their own significant dangers. 

These considerations seemed more urgent after part 1 was published when, the next day, additional suggestions came in over the transom, as it were. First, a reader suggested that I take a look at the definition proposed by Suzan Globus in the wonderful new resource, State of the Interior Design Profession edited by Caren Martin, Ph.D., and Denise Guerin, Ph.D. (Fairchild Press 2010). There, Ms. Globus relates her response to a question posed bySusan Szenazy, “How would you define interior design.” Ms. Globus’s response, which she characterizes as off-the-cuff was:

Interior design is the creation of environments that sustain and support human beings (to live) to the highest of their capabilities.

This formulation fairly sets forth how interior designers view the import of their profession and sets the ideal for which they strive in a given project. As such, it makes an excellent elevator speech, conveying to the uninitiated what interior design is about in readily understandable language.

Like most suggested definitions I’ve heard from professionals – Ros Cama, a rare exception, defined interior design as “problem solving” – Ms. Globus’s response is very value-oriented and, by its terms, excludes the type of “harmful” interior design referred to above and, necessarily, limits a holistic thinking about the nature of the field.

My last attempt was set forth in officeinsight, 7.9.07, Random Walk Interior Design: Quo Vadis also fell into this categoy:

[Interior design is] a service profession the primary purpose of which is to facilitate and support human habitation and function through the creation of appropriate interior environments.

The thrust of this definition, with its emphasis on people, is very close to that of Ms. Globus’s. In fact, in that article of officeinsight, I wrote: To the extent that design does not defer to people and organizations and the activities for which the environment is being created, it is, by definition, failed design.

I still hold the opinions expressed in that article of three years ago, but now realize that the perspectives expressed there were too limited and, upon reflection, appear to fall within the elevator-speech category rather than a more fundamental definition of the field.

This approach, while valuable, does not serve well as a definition of interior design, however, since it doesn’t lead to an understanding of what is involved with interior design. Moreover, for many it leads to the same type of ethereal associations that have caused the philistines among us to characterize interior design as the placement of pillows, with the inevitable result that the professionals dismiss the views and opinions of the general public with the traditional contemptuous, they just don’t get it.

The interior design community (and architecture as well) are simply not getting their message through. Inevitably, when a message is unclear or confused, it is in large part because those carrying the message don’t completely understand it or because there are conflicting messages being sent. In the present case, both of these problems exist.

The fatal flaws in Ms. Globus’s language as a definition – as opposed to an elevator speech – lie in its assumption, and effective stipulation that interior design must be used for good. Logically, it follows from her definition that, if an environment doesn’t sustain and support human beings (to live) to the highest of their capabilities, then it is not interior design. This is clearly not the case.

This we-only-do-good is typical among design professionals, but is particularly inapt in the case of interior design and is a substantial barrier to a developing a common consciousness of the potential and existing impact of the profession, to say nothing of any need for regulation. One point of any profession is that good education, qualification and experience help avoid or mitigate the harmful results of the uneducated, unqualified and inexperienced. Interior design may be “bad” and harmful because it fails to provide an appropriate environment for the intended use: see, for example, studies regarding alzheimer’s patients (e.g., John Zeisel’s Inquiry by Design, Tia Poldma’s study of the same contained in the IFI publication, IFI Roundtable Conference, Thinking Into The Future, 2007,http://www.ifiworld.org/#Publications; the sick building phenomena (FEMA trailers), etc.)

Just recently, while waiting for my doctor to conduct his exam, I noted that the room was reasonably large, well furnished and aesthetically acceptable, if bland. When the doctor entered (good guy) I told him about my series on defininginterior design and said that the design of his examination rooms was an example of poor interior design. When he asked why, I told him that I could hear pretty clearly his conversation in adjacent exam room with his previous patient, a clear violation of doctor-patient confidentiality and arguably a basis for a claim under HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996). It ain’t just glitz: interior design and acoustics is an important issue. (See officeinsight 8.16.10, Cerami: Getting Good Vibes.)

(As an aside, interior designers are too often shunted aside by architects, builders and M&E engineers, and as a result, may feel they don’t have a role in issues such as acoustics and air quality. These, however, are among the most important elements of any interior. The time is long past when interior designers can get by snuggling into their comfort-zone cocoon, avoiding knarly technical issues by ceding important elements of their domain to others.)

In sum, if interior design is inadequately informed by knowledge of relevant human-environment interactions, it is only chance that keeps it from being, not only “bad” interior design, but harmful.

There is also sufficient knowledge of the human-environment interaction to know that interior design can also be purposefully harmful to human beings (as opposed to harm caused by negligence, inadvertence or ignorance). Examples include prisons, where security and punishment appear to be the leading design factors. (But see Norway Builds the World's Most Humane Prison, by William Lee Adams in Time magazine athttp://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1986002,00.html#ixzz0yNeQ3Ii5)

Most of us are also familiar with sensory deprivation environments and other forms of restricted or torturous stimulation environments, such as those used on prisoners of war. North Korean/Chinese treatment of POWs during the Korean War provide extensive literature on the consequences of sensory isolation. More recent examples include practices allegedly used on Jose Padilla, a suspected terrorist, the safety environment of the yet-to-be rescued 33 Chilean miners, and the very limited and anomalous environments experienced by astronauts in outer space, all of which involve a specialized application of interior design. At the other end of the spectrum, excess-stimulation environments are also used to induce confessions and to otherwise weaken individuals, physically and psychologically. (I myself have been brought almost to my knees by the occasional sonic thumping from a passing vehicle on a city street.)

Ultimately, the only-do-good perspective of interior design leads to a laissez faireapproach to interior design, a “well, it can’t do any harm and, in any event, its good is mostly a matter of personal preference.” As a result, for most, this is a who-cares sort of issue, and certainly not one in need of regulation. After all, most believe that, whatever interior design or decoration that needs being done, seems to be getting done in a reasonably effective way, bringing harm to no one.

In effect, interior design professionals have been hoist on their own petard by their persistent declamation that interior design is inevitably an enhancement to the public health, safety and welfare. This has enabled the ignorant to keep their collective heads in the sand about the potential great harm that can be caused by interior design in the hands of the uneducated, incompetent, and careless, particularly where vulnerable populations are concerned, which includes all areas where occupants have no say: medical facilities, schools, workplaces, etc.

My new definition – in which interior design is based upon knowledge of human-environment interaction – is intended to move the general notion of interior design from the realm where only the ideal, the potential good and the emotions are involved to a more general blend of science and art. I will delve into this next week.

In the meanwhile, here are a few short elaborations – certainly not exhaustive – that can augment the so-called up-beat elevator/cocktail party pitch relating to interior design:

Good interior design complies with code and other regulatory requirements, facilitates continuing sustainable practices and takes into account a client’s constraints and preferences. [from the NCIDQ definition]

Interior design works hand-in-hand with, and overlaps both, architectural and decorative practices to create a complete unit of the built environment.

Interior design differs from architecture in that it does not address the specifics of structural and engineering components of the shell of an interior, but should play a vital part in the location and effect of such elements.

Interior design includes decoration, but decoration, alone, deals primarily with the visual aspects of the interior environment or with limited types and areas of that environment, such as personal residences and kitchens and baths.

While architecture and decoration inherently respond to human-environment interactions in fundamentally important ways, interior design explores and incorporates these relationships much more comprehensively and continuously.

Finally, I conclude this week by noting the Cheryl Durst, Executive Director and CEO of IIDA, sent the following invitation to its chapters:

Describe the profession of interior design. What is interior design? What does an interior designer do? Why is it important? Why is it a profession? What does “it” do?  Who does it impact?  When the medical profession set out to concisely describe itself, they came up with a 3 word definition of why physicians matter: “Doctors save lives”.  The 3 word descriptor and mandate for a professional policeman, is to “Protect and Serve.” Those aren’t certainly the entire picture of those professions, but the words do describe who those professionals are and what they do.

I like the notion of the three word descriptor, and have my own suggestion, a 3-word tag-line for interior design that is fully consistent with my definition of the field:

Protect - Support - Inspire

My suggested symbol for this slogan is the graceful Greek letter psi: