What is an Architectural Interior Designer?
Architectural Interior Design, also referred to as Interior Architecture or Interior Design, is a skilled profession that bridges the fields of architecture and interior design. Almost all degree honours standard designers within the field of interiors will have had a thorough training in the semiotics and aesthetics of architecture. Simply put, they apply knowledge from both of these fields to make sure that a client’s space meet the expect requirements from imaginative design to sustainability. The initial assumption is that interior designers only deal with doing up swanky houses and penthouse apartments, however the list of spaces they deal with is extensive: hotels, corporate spaces, offices, schools, hospitals, private residences, shopping malls, restaurants, bars, theaters, airport terminals and yachts. Architectural interior designers deal with the parts of the building you can touch.
Architectural Interior Designers specialise?
Architectural interior designers can specialize in a particular interior design discipline, such as residential and commercial design. Commercial design includes offices, hotels, schools, hospitals or other public buildings. Some interior designers develop expertise within a niche design area such as hospitality, health care and institutional design.
Architectural interior designers must meet broad qualifications and show competency in the entire scope of the profession, not only in a specialty. An architectural interior designer will often have to work closely with construction workers and should also know how to interact with these people properly. So having people management skills is certainly a great bonus.
At B3 Designers, an architectural Interior design practice we specialise in preparing designs for Restaurants, Bars, Retail environments, exhibitions spaces and residential properties. We have designed an extensive range of properties and we encourage our clients to test us with new areas. Most good architectural interior design consultancy will be able to apply their niche skill base to any type of designed environment.
What skills do Architectural Interior Designer have?
Architectural Interior Designers come with a host of skills, ranging from having a creative imaginative mind, good spatial awareness, an understanding of structure, ability to evaluate and problem solve.
Then there is the more pragmatic side, which involves being able to translate ideas onto paper so that a contractor can build from and see a space fitted out and completed to meet the initial vision. I’ve heard it said if a designer, architect, engineer can draw it then it can be made. The difficult process is enabling ideas to happen whilst dealing with budgets and feasibility issues.
Do architectural interior design account for sustainability within the environment?
An architectural interior designer will be familiar with construction techniques and the process of creating sustainable structures. Most architectural interior designers will concentrate on converting old building into new spaces, rather than demolishing a site or building something new straight out of the ground. For this reason alone their skill is more in tune with the sustainability argument.
Why choose an Architectural Interior Designer over an Architect?
Well this really depends on the size of the contract, if the build is to develop something straight out of the ground, a sky scraper, a block of flats the skills of an architect are very much needed. If however it is an existing building the skills of an architectural interior designer are sometimes far more suited. They will work with structural engineers to ensure that any structural works are properly calculated and approved by the local authorities. They will take the remodeling of the space right down to the intricate details of what all the internal fixtures and fittings are.
On average most Architects enter the field to do large scale projects and specialise on the detail of major structures and sometimes they will design down to the language of the form that dictates the interior. Architectural Interior Designers also like to work on large scale redevelopment projects, but will relish at the possibility to detail form the largest to the minutest scale within an interior space. They will start where the architects finish. That is not to say architects don’t do that, they can do and do but on average it is the skills of an architectural interior designer that will develop the interior brand of a space. An example would be an architect developing a new shopping center but the individual shop outlets will be left as empty boxes. This will be when an architectural interior designers will take over the space and convert it into a space that is relevant to the individual brands. Architectural interior designers turn spaces into places.
