Tasoulla Hadjiyanni, Ph.D., IDEC

Northrop Professor, Interior Design
College of Design, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis

Expertise/Sepcializations/Interests: residential design, community development, cultural aspects of space, social justice, decolonizing education, disparities

What is the highest and best purpose of interior design?

Interior design’s highest and best purpose is to serve as a medium for eliminating health, income, and educational disparities. The bottom line is that there can be no racial and social justice without design justice—that is, designs that create Culturally Enriched Communities, healthy and connected communities in which everyone can thrive. The pandemic’s disproportionate impact on communities of color in deaths and unemployment and the global call for racial justice propel the interior design community to pause and confront the question of how systemic inequalities might be related to, or even shaped, by the design of interiors. Private and public interior environments are among the primary settings where people live, work, play, socialize, pray, love, study, eat, heal, and construct meaning. By supporting or suppressing these diverse meaning-making processes, elements of interiors, from walls to windows, floors, ceilings, spatial layout, furniture placement, and regulations can delineate the production of disparities.

Personal and collective introspections can unpack aspects of the profession that could be contributing to exclusion and working to change them, such as licensing requirements, awards, building codes, design process and design aesthetic, policies, mentoring, hiring, payment structure, and language. Decolonizing interior design education requires a similar commitment that interrogates student/faculty representation, recruitment, and support; accreditation standards; curricula expectations; worldviews and theoretical frameworks employed; methodologies used; tenure and promotion guidelines; and research funding availability. Envisioning a world where design supports the well-being of all is an all-encompassing endeavor, not a list of initiatives that can be undertaken on the side. Interior design can take a stand.