Introduction
Interior design in design practice is a phenomenal career. The profession involves the creation of indoor spaces that are aligned to the client’s specifications. Typically, interior design professionals usually visit and tour spaces to create design plans, plan renovations, provide estimates of costs, supervise projects during the construction course, and work closely with clients to find design aspects that match the clients’ styles. It is also relevant that the practitioners in the interior design profession focus on making interior spaces functional, safe, and authentic. They do this by determining the requirements related to space and choosing decorative items, including lighting, colours, and materials. What is more, these subjects read blueprints while maintaining building codes and inspection regulations, besides the universal accessibility norms or standards. The profession has evolved over the years due to the emergence of a host of influential factors primarily triggered by the covid-19 pandemic. Therefore, this paper seeks to discuss the impacts of the Covid-19 crisis on the profession and discuss how an interior designer can assist in addressing the new challenges that have come to the fore while mitigating the effects on business.
Discussion
Covid-19 has had significant effects on interior spaces. One of the essential effects of the pandemic is that interior designs are now focusing more on entryways, foyers, and mudrooms. Indeed, Squier (2022) claims that in the current times, foyers, entryways, and mudrooms are getting much more attention than in the past as people become more acquainted with the need for maintaining sanitary areas, not to mention a clear division between outdoors and indoors. The essence of this development is that the interior space will gain in terms of aesthetics and functionality. The author gives the example of the interior design of the Artery Residence. As such, the facility has a large wooden door that welcomes visitors. The foyer serves as a buffer zone to the primary living areas. The foyers, mudrooms, and entryways are not new phenomena. Instead, they emerged as a result of past pandemics. Nevertheless, with the Covid-19, the facilities have grown and become much more functional. The greater emphasis on the mudrooms, foyers, and entryways has resulted in new demands. For example, Insight Consulting Australia (2021) expressed that the emphasis on foyers has led to new demands to put greater consideration on vulnerable young people. Traditionally, foyers formed a natural space for large meetings and assemblies, while lighting is often used to mark the meeting zones. However, distinct demands will arise. As a result, the foyer’s design will shift away from the traditions. As such, rather than being scaled to hold large meetings, the foyers’ dimensions will be reduced in alignment with the changing function of the facility.
Another key change in the interior design due to the onset and persistence of the current pandemic is the installation of office stations. A report by Foyr (2022) revealed that it is always advisable that people should not bring their offices home. Therefore, the interior designs of residential homes have always been such that they are used for recreational purposes, including taking a nap. However, the current pandemic has changed this status quo. Foyr (2022) and Lerner (2021) both claim that homes are being converted to office spaces in recent times. The agency claims that the pandemic has resulted in interior designers allocating spare rooms. Where impossible, these professionals are remodelling every available space inside the clients’ homes to fit an office desk or even a study corner. As a result, several demands have emerged. For example, interior design professionals have been compelled to redesign some rooms to accommodate office work, including heavy office usage. Therefore, unlike the past, rooms or home spaces reformulated to accommodate home-based office work have designated spaces for office technologies such as printers and personal computers.
The interior designs have also changed in the face of the ongoing pandemic in the notion that they have now adopted biophilic designs. Shamaileh (2021) confers that the interior designs are now characterized by sliding doors as well as large windows that bring the outside in nature and greenery-inspired colors. Consequently, the internal design being pursued today is one that enhances the connection of people to the environment as a way of boosting the physical and mental wellness of the people while inside their homes. The past pandemics, such as influenza, were responsible for this new status quo. While this is the case, during Covid-19, the biophilic interior designs have become even more meaningful today, hence their rising prominence, especially for city dwellers. The connection to nature and the desire to promote safety and well-being has made it necessary for interior design professionals to focus less on display and more on textures that are more comforting and cocooning.
The ongoing pandemic has also affected the market for interior design supplies. True to this notion, Ustyugov’s (2021) report showed that the pandemic had split the interior design market. As such, consumption habits have been changed dramatically, just like it was the case during the previous coronavirus that occurred in 1918. During this historical pandemic, individuals stopped purchasing apartments and started renting. In addition to this, the consumers were encouraged to eat more, leading to declining kitchen size. This is also the state of affairs in the current times. As such, the purchase of homes has dwindled while renting has increased. Thus, as the renters do not own their rented apartments, the demand for interior design modifications has scaled down. Therefore, with this being the case, it follows that the activity of the interior design professionals has reduced to some magnitude.
Furthermore, a report by Market Research (2022) has revealed that the interior design size has increased. According to the report, in 2021, industrial sales in the field reached $12.9 billion. The purchase was now historical. The number of companies in the interior design industry also increased in terms of their numbers. These new changes have been due to the increasing demand for interior design supplies to redefine the interior spaces. As noted previously in this paper, even though the purchase of new homes decreased, the existing homeowners demonstrated an increased desire to modify their apartments to accommodate, among others, home offices. Therefore, this new trend propelled an increased demand for interior design supplies. If this is the case, it was expected that the sales revenues in the industry would rise significantly. It is also imperative to assert that the Covid-19 has also led to the demand for new interior design technologies. For example, as people are now working from home, the demand for teleconferencing technologies so that workers can connect has risen.
Covid-19 has also led to a change in the scope of services provided by interior designers. For example, Jow (2020) related that when the Covid-19 pandemic emerged, clients put interior design spending on hold, similar to what ensued following the onset of the 2007/2008 global economic recession. However, after a few months, the spending was on a record high as clients started converting their spaces, for example, to home offices. Indeed, Jow (2020) supposes that the clients were even willing to pay a premium to have their interior spaces modified. The increased client spending has had a fundamental implication for interior design professionals. In particular, these parties have seen the demand for their services surge tremendously, but this was after some stall during the initial months after the outset of the pandemic. Furthermore, given that the modification of interior spaces was something uncommon, though it was still a facet of the profession, interior design professionals have had to do more than before. For example, rather than just transforming the interior spaces to accommodate home-based offices, these professionals are now expanding their services such that they now include the installation of relevant technologies, including video conferencing systems and mudrooms.
The current pandemic has also increased the scope of the internal design professionals in that these subjects have faced the need for learning new work-related skills. For example, Jow (2020) explains that in the light of the ongoing pandemic, skills and abilities that interior design affords humans have become more crucial than ever. Therefore, curiosity, empathy, patience, problem-solving, and common sense have increased in their value to the profession. Accordingly, interior design professionals are now required to harbor skills and abilities that go well beyond the typical profession. Instead, they are now required to cultivate appropriate skills to create an interior design that meets the clients’ needs pertaining to the ongoing pandemic.
In the new age of Covid-19, new ethical responsibilities have come up. One of these is that interior design professionals are now required to develop empathy and sympathy for the clients because of their continued vulnerability to the ongoing pandemic. In addition, as Jow (2020) shows, these professionals are now required to separate the fear of the pandemic from the fear of the economic stand-still that Covid-19 has caused. The ethical outcome that arises from this separation is that interior design professionals are being called to become more mindful of their practices. An additional ethical issue due to the ongoing pandemic relates to communication. In his article, Jow (2020) expresses that the way interior design professionals talk to their clients and the kind of messages they convey have evolved radically. Indeed, the professionals are now sensitive in their outreach and tone. This has arisen due to the fact that the professionals understand the challenges that the clients are facing. Therefore, empathy in the way professionals addresses their clients has become an integral part of the communication strategy in this age of Covid-19.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it is vivid that the ongoing pandemic has had a major influence on the interior design profession. This paper has shown that the pandemic has led to major transitions in the functionality of the interior spaces, giving rise to new demands. Besides, the discussion has illustrated that new demands in the interior space design market have come up while some aspects have been phased out, though momentarily. The scope of service for the interior design professionals has also expanded while new ethical responsibilities, for example, more sensitivity to communication and being mindful of the interior design practices, have come up. Therefore, the profession’s future will be entirely different from the past status quo.
References
Foyr (2022). How Covid-19 Pandemic Changed Home Design Principles? https://foyr.com/learn/how-covid-19-pandemic-changed-home-design-principles/
Insight Consulting Australia (2021). Scaling Foyers for NSW. https://shelternsw.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Scaling-Foyers-for-NSW_Report.pdf
Jow, T. (2020). 8 Ways COVID-19 Will Impact the Future of Interior Design. https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/8-ways-covid-19-will-impact-the-future-of-interior-design
Lerner, M. (2021). A home of the future, shaped by the coronavirus pandemic. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/realestate/a-home-of-the-future-shaped-by-the-coronavirus-pandemic/2021/08/18/5e3a2032-d426-11eb-ae54-515e2f63d37d_story.html?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_homes&utm_campaign=wp_at_home
Market Research (2022). Interior Design – 2022 U.S. Market Research Report with Updated COVID-19 Forecasts. https://www.marketresearch.com/Kentley-Insights-v4035/Interior-Design-Research-Updated-COVID-30461734/
Shamaileh, A. A. (2021). Responding to COVID-19 pandemic: interior designs’ trends of houses in Jordan. International Journal of Human Rights in Healthcare, 1(1), 1-10.
Squier, A. (2022). How the Pandemic Is Reshaping Interior Design So Far. Dwell. https://www.dwell.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-interior-design-impact-0bf0f8a1
Ustyugov, A. (2021). Three Ways Covid-19 Has Affected the Interior Design Market. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2021/12/03/three-ways-covid-19-has-affected-the-interior-design-market/?sh=71947f3553c4
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