Transition Interior Design: Reimagining Practice and Education for a Post-Carbon Society

Abstract

Interior design is a profession dependent on a high-technology design process, product manufacturing, and the constant movement of people and goods. While small contingents of interior designers, typically positioned within academia, pursue design for social and environmental justice, the profession is largely perceived as a luxury profession within a consumerist society. Interior design is implicated within the larger societal ambitions of sustainable development, but much evolution to interior design education, processes, and practices is needed to sharpen disciplinary contributions to global sustainable development goals (SDGs). This critical examination of the interior design discipline is inspired by scholarship that reimagines design practice and education through the lens of “transition design”. Transition design provides a compelling portal to examine the ways in which practice and education will transition from current unsustainable levels of energy use to a new energy paradigm. This review is structured by logical argumentation that begins with the global environmental imperatives outlined by the United Nations. Transition design tools are then systematically adapted and applied to the interior design context. The result is a proposal for “Transition Interior Design” with vital future directions for interior design practitioners, students, and educators moving toward a future of energy uncertainty.