Programming Interior Environments

A Practical Guide for Students

Cynthia Karpan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781317495826
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Interior Design

Programming Interior Environments introduces a four-component framework you can use to program interiors, and twelve methods for you to gather, analyze and synthesize programmatic information to take the guesswork out of your studio projects.

This book studies the Student Programming Model: a realistic programming process for college and university interior design students that allows students to create accurate and in-depth programming documents essential for informing the design process. This is done whilst keeping in mind that students are often working solo, with imaginary clients and end users in mind, and collecting program information within strict time constraints.

Including three appendices of student programs created following these guidelines, to help you understand how to apply the framework components and inquiry methods in your own work, this book is ideal for students and professionals in interior design and interior architecture.

Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

If this is the first book you’ve ever looked at about programming, then you need a bit of context. That is, you need to understand how the subject of programming interior environments fits with what you already know about interior design. If you’ve already read a book or two on programming, or done programming yourself, then you can consider this chapter just a little refresher about how programming fits within interior design.

To begin with, you might be wondering, “What is programming anyway? Is it a part of the design process? Do I have to write a program for every single design project that I do?” This chapter answers those questions and a few more; beginning with an explanation about why I wrote this book for students.

Intended Audience

This book was written because there are only a few publications available on programming interior environments. While there are plenty of books about architectural programming, it is only recently that Botti-Salitsky (2009) and Dickinson and Marsden (2009) published programming books specifically for the interior design discipline. Botti-Salitsky’s (2009) book is strictly about programming, and Dickinson and Marsden’s (2009) is about the relationship between programming and research. Additionally, a book by Nussbaumer (2009) is about evidence-based design which, of course, includes programming. In 1998, Scott-Webber published a book about programming interiors but it is not readily available from the publisher.

Undoubtedly, these books have contributed much to the growing body of literature on interior design processes, programming, and research methods. What this book adds to the interior design body of knowledge is a realistic programming process; a process that is geared specifically toward you, the student.

You might be an undergraduate or graduate student in a college or university interior design program. I wrote this book with you in mind because I recognized the need for a practical programming process – one that would help you produce a high-quality program in a reasonable amount of time, and one that would assume that you’ll be working alone on your project with either real or hypothetical clients.

Instructors may find the book helpful as well because, in addition to the student-oriented programming process, the book includes an explanation about modern-day programming, when it emerged, and key moments in its evolution. Also included is an overview of recent interior design programming models. Instructors will find that the history, existing model analysis, and the Student Programming Model (SPM) provide an easy-to-understand theoretical foundation for teaching programming. Both students and instructors will find the programs included in the appendix useful as well since they were created using the process and methods described in this book. This practical and theoretical book can be used in both studio and stand-alone courses.

Programming

In interior design, programming is a pre-design activity that takes place prior to design development. This is true in both professional practice and design education. Programming is something you do before you start imagining design concepts or drawing bubble diagrams. Programming is a decision-making and priority-setting exercise that helps you identify the issues, problems, and needs that must be addressed in the eventual design solution. The process is also used to translate human needs and activities into physical space requirements, and to establish project objectives and design guidelines. Once you (or another designer) begins to generate design solutions, the project objectives and design guidelines help you make decisions and assess the degree to which your design solutions are consistent with the original project objectives.

Programming is a systematic and objective process for gathering, analyzing, and synthesizing information about a particular project. The process results in a program document. Some of you might think of the process as being labor intensive and unimaginative while others might think of it as an exciting and surprisingly creative process. Whether you consider it to be a mundane or creative activity, programming is necessary if you wish to save time (during the design phase), make informed decisions, and end up with a design solution that meets your client’s goals and objectives or the objectives set out by your instructor.

Most post-secondary interior design programs in North America and the UK provide students with some form of instruction about programming whether that instruction takes place in a stand-alone course or a design studio. Regardless of where, when, or how it’s taught, programming is an important part of interior design education that begins with an understanding of the overall design process.

The Design Process

Interior design practitioners, educators, and students don’t all follow the exact same design process. That’s because design is a creative activity. But, as Sam Kubba (2003, 65–66) explained:

Despite variations in techniques and terminology … the design methodology process has remained intact, consisting of seven sequential steps. These are:

1.Programming.

2.Schematic design.

3.Design development.

4.Construction documents.

5.Bidding (tendering) of construction documents.

6.Execution/supervision of project.

7.Post-occupancy evaluation.

Among other authors, Clemons (2017), Kilmer and Kilmer (2014), Pile (2003), Slotkis (2006) describe interior design processes similar to Kubba’s (2003). So, if there is strength in numbers, then Kubba’s (2003) model is an accurate reflection of the process used by most interior design practitioners and students.

As shown in Figure 1.1, the design process is often illustrated in a linear format. At the same time, most authors would agree that the actual design process doesn’t always follow a strict linear format. Instead, designers sometimes go back-and-forth between various steps, or work on more than one step of the process at a time (Figure 1.2). It is notable, though, that the back-and-forth movement usually occurs in the early phases of the process rather than the latter. This is because once the design moves into construction documents and bidding, most of the decisions have already been made.

Figure 1.1Linear design process (content by author, illustration by June Bug Design)

Figure 1.2Non-linear design process (content by author, illustration by June Bug Design)

In real-life practice, interior designers complete all seven steps described by Kubba (2003). In university or college, however, you probably stop at step 3 or 4. Step 4, construction drawings, may or may not be required for your studio project. If construction drawings are not a part of your studio requirement, they may be required for your practicum or capstone project, or they may be done in a separate course. Steps 5–7 are not usually addressed in university or college because of the hypothetical nature of most studio projects, and because of time limitations with university or college semesters or trimester systems.

A noteworthy aspect of the design process is its inherent feed-forward characteristic. That is, the output or product of one step informs the next step. For instance, the product of step 3, design drawings, is used to begin step 4, construction drawings. Or, the outcome of a project (post-occupancy evaluation) leads to, or can inform, the beginning of a project (programming). These characteristics are evident in the SPM described in Chapter 3.

The Programming Process

Programming, the first step in Kubba’s (2003) design process model, is more difficult to do in university or college than it is in real life. This is because, as a student, you are likely working alone, and you probably don’t have real clients or end users to help you make decisions. Of course, you can always talk to your classmates but they are probably working on the same project as you. As such, your peers probably can’t spare the time, or make the necessary mental shift between their project and yours, in order to provide you with the in-depth conversation or discussion necessary in order to achieve any kind of deep understanding.

Depending on your instructor, or on the nature of the project or assignment you are working on, you may need to generate imaginary clients and users along with imaginary project objectives; not easy tasks for seasoned interior designers to do let alone students. Sometimes, your instructor will provide you with client and end user profiles, or partial profiles but, in the end, it is still up to you to decide what the project objectives should be. In other words, you still have to pretend.

Some interior design and architectural books describe programming processes and methods that replicate those used in real-life practice. And, if the goal of education is to prepare students for real-life practice, then books about real-life programming methods make sense. Unfortunately, it is almost impossible for you to use real-life programming methods because such methods require access to real clients, or require group work that involves clients, programmers, designers, and maybe even others. In short, student programmers don’t have available to them the resources available to practitioners.

Other interior design and architectural programming books describe research methods that can be used in programming. If you had plenty of time to complete your programming assignment, conducting research would be the ideal way to obtain original data to support your programming decisions. Again, most of you probably don’t have time to conduct research that requires approval from your college or university human ethics board, and you most likely don’t have time to conduct the type of data analysis that is expected when collecting original data.

This book responds to the student programming dilemma by offering the SPM. The SPM consists of a process and methods that will help you, the student programmer, complete your programming assignment with confidence and ease. The student model can be used with real or imaginary clients, end users, or buildings. The five-step process will guide you through information collection, analysis, synthesis, evaluation and revision, and communication that, in the end, will result in a program document for any type of interior project. Chapters 4–8, along with Appendices A- C, provide clear explanations, methods, and examples of how to use the SPM, and what your program document might look like.

The Program Document

A program document is the product that results from programming. Whether hard copy or digital, the document contains critical information about a project that has not yet been designed. It isn’t a large binder stuffed with photocopied articles and endless notes, and it isn’t an essay or novel. Instead, it is a concise document with short paragraphs, lists, charts, tables, diagrams, design drawings, images, and other project-related information.

The program’s audience is the designer – one who will use the document as a guide to help him through conceptual and schematic design as well as design development. As a design student, you know that once you have your “design hat” on, the last thing you want to do is to have to stop and read a long document in order to find out what it is that you need to know. Instead, you want a quick reference – a chart or an image – that instantaneously provides you with the information you need. This is the program document.

The contents of a program document include background information on the client, factual information about the intended end users and their needs, project objectives and assumptions, informed estimates about spatial requirements and sizes, and design guidelines. In real-life practice, programs can also include information related to the budget and the timeline to project completion. In this book, and in most college and university interior design programs, neither budget nor timeline to occupancy issues are addressed because of the hypothetical nature of educational design projects.

In real-life practice, programs are fairly straightforward in that they are organized and professional looking documents. In university, students that I’ve taught seem to like unleashing their creativity with program documents using special layout or formatting software programs, and fonts and color that reflect the nature of their projects. How mu...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Endorsement
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Figures
• Tables
• Acknowledgements
• Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION
• Chapter 2 MODERN-DAY PROGRAMMING
• Chapter 3 INTERIOR DESIGN PROGRAMMING MODELS
• Chapter 4 COLLECTION
• Chapter 5 ANALYSIS
• Chapter 6 SYNTHESIS
• Chapter 7 EVALUATION AND REVISION, COMMUNICATION
• Chapter 8 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
• A Blackthorn Live/Create Program
• B The HUB Program
• Extreme Toy Hauler Mobile Showroom Program
• Index