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What is Interior Design?

Interior Design is the design discipline responsible for the design of the interior settings in which we live, work, learn, eat, shop, and heal.

Interior Design is

crafting memorable experiences

story telling with authenticity

applied environmental psychology

developing inspiring spaces that serve complex human needs

It’s not what your parents think! Interior Design involves the creation of functional and customized facilities that serve the needs of individuals and organizations. Interior designers design environments that are inspiring, promote health, are sustainable, and involve the community, owners, users, designers, and contractors as active participants in the design process. Interior design professionals do not fluff pillows. They design state-of-the-art corporate office spaces, amazing restaurants, awe-inspiring hospitals, breathtaking hotels, stunning retail stores, and much more.

Interior Design is a young and exciting profession. It was not until the 1970’s that the National Council for Interior Design Qualification (NCIDQ), the discipline’s certification body, was formed to establish and govern standards for the examination of interior design professionals. FIDER, the Foundation for Interior Design Education Research (now CIDA) was also formed in the 1970’s to review and accredit undergraduate and graduate interior design programs. In 1982, the first United States legislation supporting the profession was passed in Alabama. Today, the field of interior design continues its steady growth and development of specialized areas of knowledge.

Interior designers are creative problem-solvers, proficient in technical matters, and savvy business professionals. They are grounded in studies about the effects of the built environment on humans and have expertise in interior construction practices, the performance properties of interior materials, interior lighting design, and the application of building codes that ensure the health, safety, and welfare of the public. The education of interior designers is demanding and entails the acquisition of design and technical knowledge and skills. This includes knowledge about building and accessibility codes, construction means and methods, anthropometrics, ergonomics, lighting design and much more.

Activities for a typical project include determining the needs of the client and users of a facility, understanding the opportunities and constraints of the building site and overall context, presenting multiple possible solutions, preparing detailed construction documents in accordance to building and accessibility codes, coordinating the work with mechanical, electrical, and structural engineers, and overseeing the construction and installation phases to ensure compliance with the contract documents

As professionals, Interior Designers pursue professional certification. They are required to graduate from a CIDA accredited Interior Design program, spend a stipulated number of hours (which amounts to about two years) in practice after graduation, and take the NCIDQ certification test. After passing the exam the designer can then pursue licensing in the states in which he or she intends to practice.

There are jobs for Interior Design graduates! According to projections by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment of interior designers has been growing and is projected to continue growing in the years ahead. Furthermore, interior designers earn competitive salaries and can make a good living. ASID, the largest professional organization in the field reports that the average salary for interior designers in the United States is $72,212 per year and the top 10% makes an average of $103,473. Companies also offer competitive benefits packages.

Come join the profession!

Interior Design at UF

The Interior Design undergraduate program is a first professional degree that prepares students who want to practice design. The program is accredited by the Council for Interior Design Accreditation (CIDA). It was one of the first programs accredited and has maintained continuous accreditation status since its initial accreditation in 1974. Students in the program are required to complete 120 credit hours and it takes 4 years to complete the bachelor’s degree. Most of our students start as Interior Design majors their first year while others join us via the college’s GDC transfer program or as transfer students from other majors within the University.

The program resides within the College of Design, Construction, and Planning and is the only Interior Design program in the State of Florida that benefits from having Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Historic Preservation, Sustainability in the Built Environment, Urban and Regional Planning and Construction Management all under one college. The richness of the multidisciplinary makeup of the college is exciting and palpable and provides many opportunities for interdisciplinary collaborations.

The Bachelor of Design (B.Des) with a major in Interior Design is:

for students who want a first professional degree accredited by the Council for Interior Design Accreditation (CIDA)

120 credit hours

controlled by a selective admission processes during the spring of sophomore year

structured with sequential studios that take four years to complete (see GDC/transfer model)

What are UF Interior Design studios like?

As a discipline, Interior Design involves a broad range of intellectual and practical abilities and encompasses many sub-fields of study. One of the most important attributes of a designer is the ability to synthesize information from many diverse sources and areas of expertise. For any given project Interior Designers research information related to the project, interview project users, conceptualize design approaches, draw their design ideas, confirm their feasibility, and communicate them to an audience. In doing so, they utilize knowledge from all areas of the curriculum including environment and behavior theories, construction materials, building technology, history, visualization techniques and many others.

At the core of the design curriculum is the design studio, a community in microcosm that encourages exploration, collaboration, open discussion, and a thriving design community. It is there that students research and understand design situations, conceptualize design responses, conceive ideas to propose, develop them, and present their design proposals. After a while students start to find their own creative voice, one that gets polished over time.

So, it is in the studio that students get immersed in the design experience, together with their peers and surrounded by sketches, drawings, computers, books and the many other artifices of the discipline. The studio setting encourages dialogue, collaboration, and creative thinking. Design proposals are openly discussed among classmates, faculty, and visiting professionals. Students share ideas, learn from, contribute to each other’s progress, and enjoy having a common purpose as a unifying force.

Studios are available to students on a 24/7 basis and students spend long hours in them, working on their projects. The vibe is informal and some of their best ideas arise outside of class, through an after-hours discussion or a chance encounter.

Types of Projects We Do

Interior design students learn to solve complex design problems in many market sectors. The professional skills they acquire include technical and business-related skills that serve them well as they enter the workforce after graduation. As we prepare the future design leaders of our continually changing world we strive to equip them with lifelong professional habits and an agile disposition to tackle new challenges now and in the years ahead.

Hospitality

Seniors are challenged with developing a place-sensitive guest experience and appropriate business strategy that supports the needs of identified guest types as well as operations within their multi-level building sites.

Healthcare

Seniors take a deep-dive in exploring the nuances of healthcare design through collaborative team projects and external feedback from architectural design firms like Gresham. Recent projects have explored the design of ERs, oncology, and orthopedic units.

Retail

In the spring of their junior year, students tackle the retail market sector with assigned brands, and are challenged to push the boundaries of the shopping experience. What should the retail of tomorrow look like?

Workplace

Junior students explore the multi-faceted nature of workplace environments with consideration to complex programmatic needs, departmental relationships, and developing solutions that consider a variety of human factors.

Higher Education

The UF campus becomes a learning lab where students use local sites to re-imagine spaces within higher education. What should the classroom of tomorrow look like? How do we support learning and collaboration beyond the classroom and across in-between spaces?

Restaurant

Students take on the role of “Experience Architects” to design the ‘special sauce’ that turns a restaurant into a destination restaurant. These designs consider how the built environment can go beyond to support social and active engagement.

What Does ‘Learning’ Design Look Like?

We believe in a problem-based, iterative, learning-by-doing model in which students produce creative design solutions for specific design problems assigned to them. As part of this self-directed type of learning, students are expected to wrestle with the assigned design challenge and find proper solutions. Guided by faculty, students are expected to focus their thinking and engage in a design process that will lead to potential solutions. There is the expectation that students will come to class prepared to share their work and that they will also contribute to the overall discourse.

Learning design requires on-going critical examination and evaluation of the work and, to that end, our faculty provide supportive, candid and constructive feedback regularly. Desk crits and pin-ups are generally the most common forms of giving feedback and consist of informal and personal interactions between students and faculty.

Essentially, desk crits are individual sessions involving a one-on-one exchange between student and instructor. They occur at a student’s desk and entail dialogues about the various aspects of the project. The studio instructor may often suggest ideas and approaches they feel will improve particular aspects of the project. Students are generally expected to explore these suggestions by revisiting their design. This iterative process of revisiting and revising alternative solutions is generally considered to be fundamental to the design process.

Informal pin-ups also occur in the studio. Work in-progress is pinned up to a wall surface and discussed openly. This may be done individually but often involves a group of students, and, sometimes, outside critics. Public project reviews are more formal and usually include outside critics. Mid-term and final reviews are intended to create benchmarks for the completion of work, and more importantly, to offer each student feedback that is critical to their development as designers. In addition to serving as a means to assess the progress of individual students, the broader conversations that take place in these reviews are an enriching and integral component of the overall learning process.

Work done in studio is cumulative, and not just focused on the final outcome. Our students understand that continuous and sustained work is necessary for the development of conceptual and technical skills. Preliminary studies produced for intermediate pin ups and weekly desk crits are a crucial part of the total experience and necessary for a successful project outcome.

Meet Our Gators

Smita Sahoo

Smita Sahoo, the creator of āśaya | DESIGN, crafts residential, commercial, hospitality and experiential spaces that encourage people to “unleash their authentic selves, find a sense of purpose and form a deeper connection and appreciation for the natural environment,” according to her website www.asayadesign.com.

Smita is an exceptionally creative voice in the design profession by using her diverse background in architecture, interior design and environmental psychology. Smita’s goal is to strengthen our emotional connection to the places we live, work and interact so she decided to launch her own practice in July. A practice, her website states, “that embraces a true independence of mindset, breaking the old ways of doing business and being ethical with our code of conduct.” The word āśaya in Sanskrit translates to “the cradle of feelings and thoughts.”

Cindy Chen

DCP alumnus Cindy Chen completed her research investigating the design of successful pop-up stores, a significant sector in the evolving retail market.

Chen was one of seven students selected for DCP’s Undergraduate Scholars Program and worked alongside Genesis Okken, a lecturer within DCP’s Department of Interior Design, to uncover the success of experiential design elements in six pop-up stores across New York City in December 2019.

Michelle Castagna

Michelle Castagna is a 1997 University of Florida College of Design, Construction and Planning graduate who majored in interior design. Currently, Castagna is the president and owner of the Muse Design Studio based out of South Florida. In addition, she is also president of the Florida Chapter of the International Furnishings and Design Association.

Castagna began her journey with a high-end interior design firm, which ultimately led her to co-owning a design studio. In an effort to truly enjoy designing as opposed to managing a team, the Gator decided a few years ago to sell her ownership stake and start Muse on her own.

Katelyn Burdett

Katelyn Burdett is a rising senior interior design student who is currently interning at HuntonBrady Architects in Orlando. She is the president of the University of Florida’s American Society of Interior Designers and International Interior Design Association student chapters and has also served as the student representative for the ASID Florida North chapter this past year. In addition to these professional organizations, she is very involved with Reformed University Fellowship at UF.

While HuntonBrady is an architecture firm, they do have an interior design team that is split into two sections: healthcare and commercial interiors. For the first half of the summer, Burdett worked with the commercial team. She will soon switch over to the healthcare team to continue her internship.

Rachel Stanakis

Rachel Stanakis is a fourth-year interior design student who just recently finished interning at HuntonBrady Architects in Orlando. For the past three years, she has served on the Board for the University of Florida’s American Society of Interior Design Association. Stanakis also volunteers her time on the leadership team for UF Young Life, which aims to create community among students on the Gainesville campus.

The Maitland, Fla., native lept at the chance to step out of her comfort zone during the pandemic and intern at HuntonBrady. Meetings in a room have turned into meetings on Zoom. While many full-time employees are choosing to work from home, Stanakis has appreciated how much she has learned from the interiors team due to her focused time with them.

Department of Interior Design