20 Years of Interiors
Aug 1, 2010 12:00 PM
We asked design professionals featured in this issue a few questions about how interior design has changed over the past 20 years—and what the future holds.
The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey: Donald Ellis Moore, Associate Vice President for Operations
What are the biggest changes in educational interiors over the past 20 years?
Interiors these days are being designed to have more transparency from space to space, allowing one to witness the academic process from the outside of the actual classroom. Flexibility of a space is now much more prominent since academic institutions are becoming more flexible in their academic offerings, and balancing them against declining availability of capital investment funds. As institutional pedagogical offerings evolve so must also the ability for facility professionals to deliver spaces that readily support such evolution, but at a reasonable cost.
What do you see as the future of the interior education space in the next few years?
The future of the interior educational space must consider the media used to educate our students. Rapidly changing message-delivery systems via laptops, cell phones, blogs, texting and now iPad, demonstrate an ever- evolving need to be flexible on special support. The need for academic space to be built with capacity to support these and evolving systems is critical. Facilities without walls or with walls that are movable, and spaces that have support for mobile electronic devices as well as Internet use will be the only way that the space can meet the needs of the present as well as the future without having to incur substantial capital investment costs. Allow for classrooms to be wherever a group happens to be standing or seated.
How has the emergence of green/sustainability changed the interior space, and how will it continue to affect the way interiors are designed?
To support green/sustainability, interior spaces must be managed and operated with minimal manufactured energy, natural instead of manufactured lighting, reduction of heat gain by using passive shading devices/systems, and ground-source heating and cooling being considered while designing such spaces. Buildings will be designed to be used as operating laboratories and test beds for sustainable products to learn from. They will be designed to become passively and organically sustainable with less attention drawn to moving parts that highlight electronics, building automation systems, and other devices to modulate energy consumption and to promote sustainability. Buildings will be self performing with less human interaction, a “smart” building, with integrated materials and systems that will detect relative changes within and outside of it and independently respond to minimize its own environmental impact.
- Return to the 2010 Educational Interiors Showcase 20 Years of Interiors main page to view more responses.
