Kia Weatherspoon, NCIDQ, ASID

President, Interior Design Advocate
Determined by Design, Washington, DC

Expertise/Specializations/Interests: hospitality, multi-family, high-end residential interior design, designing and crafting interior stories, strategic social media development

What is the highest and best purpose of interior design?

Empathy. Interior design is the greatest form of empathy in practice. Empathy by definition is the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings and experience of another without having them fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner. Therefore, the highest purpose of Interior Design is to create spaces reflecting people’s and/or a community’s story and history; not egocentric based styles/trends. At its highest level, Interior Design will exceed the needs of all people - no matter their socioeconomic status. This means using research and evidence-based design not as a benchmark for the bare minimum, but a metric for how to exceed. The highest level of design is sans biases that foster inequitable design outcomes within the most vulnerable communities or market segments. 

Resulting in the purpose of Interior Design: to bring beauty, inspiration, stories, safety, solstice, and materially to the forefront of a person's life for the betterment of future generations. At our best, Interior Design/ers must constantly remember we are servants of the people. To serve communities we have to be cognizant of the labels that can/do hinder our creative process. Removing labels that identify people based on their circumstances from our design process will result in doing more than the bare minimum of designing a dignified space. Interior Design’s purpose is to be accessible, elevated, and equal for all to create possibility through the spaces we design.