Diferences bwt Architecture, Interior Design and Interior decorator

According to Lucinda Kuakas Havenhand in her article “A View from the Margin,” Interior design is perceived as feminine, superficial, and mimetic as compared to a male, rational, and original architecture. An architect is a person who is involved in the planning, designing and oversight of a building's construction. Buildings must be safe and strong. They must also suit the needs of the people who use them. An architect, invents, designs buildings, and translates the user’s requirements into a build environment. They create something that does not exist already in an open space.  An interior designer is involved in the process of shaping the experience of interior space through the manipulation of spatial volume as well as surface treatment.  Interior design draws on aspects of environmental psychology, architecture, and product design. Interior designers have to be good with more than color, fabric, and furniture; interior designers must know materials, have budgeting skills, communicate well, and oversee the ordering, installation, and maintenance of all objects that define a space. They also have to know about electrical capacity, safety, and construction. In order to have all these qualities and knowledge, interior designers must have a school degree, pass examinations, have experience and attain a license (required by the state).This broader range of required knowledge distinguishes them from interior decorators. “Interior designers do understand that they have a problematic and often misunderstood identity, although they have worked diligently over the past fifty years to identify and legitimize their field. In the 1930s and ´40s, these activities were centered on differentiating interior design from interior decorator through the creation of educational programs and criteria for competency and knowledge (Havenhand K. L. 2004).” As a result, professional organizations such as ASID,FIDER, and NCIDQ were formed to oversee the development and maintenance of these criteria both in education and practice.   The process of an interior designer is a strategic investment with a long term consequences. They do programming, light testing, space planning (to work with people’s needs), and layout the space. Once they get an approval, they start to design everything you see in the space from walls, surfaces, ceilings, lighting, and plumbing. Next, they install the furniture and art work. They create places that provide health, safety, and moral. They create spaces that connect with every person who is going to use it. On the other hand, an interior decorator is someone who decorates a room (or place) based on what they have available or what is in it. They deal with finishes, surfaces, furniture, and wall covering. They are able to work from a showroom to a remodeling retail store. There are no government regulations’ regarding the work of an interior decorator.  

Interior Design

Interior design is a discipline that looks after designing all of the interiors of a space. This can include things like flooring, windows, walls, doors, lighting, furniture, and miscellaneous design pieces. 

An Interior designer is not a decorator, or architect. We don’t just pick colors, materials, fabrics, and be creative. We help people to understand what they really want, and what they really like.

Every human being is different, so we do a deep study of people’s personality based on principles to deliver to people something that they have not experienced before.

We have education, work place experience, and regular examinations. We are uniquely qualified to select finishes and materials for purpose and reason. To select color we think about lighting and mood. We focus in design trends; we consider building codes, barrier free designs for all individuals and the integration of a technology to protect the health, safety and well being of the users of the space.

We can work in so many different environments; residential, retail, hospitality spaces, commercial, and health care facilities.

Our job is really important, we are responsible for anything people see walking into an enclose space from lighting, light figures, pluming, and wall color, to flooring, accessory furniture and art work.

We created and experience spaces that are always functional for everyone who is going to use it. It is more than pillows and paint; we focus on health and safety not only for people but for the environment. We improved people’s lives.

We are professionals that create welcome spaces uses by people of all ages, backgrounds and abilities.

This is a really long process where interior designers take time sketching, drawing, and planning the space.

In order to deliver comfort to people, we have to use analysis and work pictures to describe to the individual what they are going to see before it is being done. It is not as simple as taking examples of a magazine and copying them; it is something more personal that will improve people’s lives with comfort and safety. We set people up for success based on principles, structure, rhythm, and personal interest.

We have a big imagination. We think of how people will feel, talk, work or relax in the space. We can make this appear in stores, restaurants, sports stadiums, hospitals, etc

If you choose something you feel passionate about, your job won’t even feel like work. You have to do what you love, so people can love what you do.