Psychologists of Interior Design

lovedayy
Dec 4, 2020
3 min read

Updated: Dec 5, 2020

That is what we are. Within our industry of turning spaces into places, Interior Designers are trained to create places for clients that reflect needs deeper than shapes, colors, and materials. We understand designing a space is about feeling and intuition, biology, and our environment. A good Interior Designer listens, hears you, and observes. We are trained to understand the importance of correctly reading clients so we can successfully produce a design for their needs, not ours. Researching and understanding the behavioral and mental needs of the population, or person, we are creating for is the first step we must take in each design journey we make.

READING BEHAVIOR

◊ Designers must understand that human behavior is based off our environmental surroundings, past experiences, and biological needs. For designers to learn about the behavioral needs of the population we are designing for, we must conduct observations. A design team will find a place similar to their project (or the project itself if we are talking renovation design) and observe behaviors and demographics. Our observation methods of recording days, times, demographics, paths traveled, amounts of people, and activities taking place, help us understand the needs of the type/s of users we are designing for. Thus, allowing us to create something functional and appropriate, something that makes sense. One example of behavioral observation I have found myself psychoanalyzing for months now is how people have reacted to the COVID-19 health pandemic. The way that humans navigate through grocery stores, professional buildings, even parks, has drastically changed since the COVID-19 virus took over our lives in a way that forced us to change our public health safety ways.

Photo Credit: Interaction Design Foundation

READ MENTALITY & EMOTIONS

◊ Behavioral observation can be rather tricky when working on residential projects because, to follow someone around in their home for a day to see how they move and behave may just be quite awkward for everyone involved, lol. Therefore, designers may rely on reading residential clients by studying their mental and emotional capabilities of communication more so than their behavioral actions. Getting to know your client, asking questions to pull who they are out of them and lay that on the table for you to sort out and create something just for them, that takes skill. I believe client/designer relatability is a key factor that contributes to that skill. I also believe we must try to put ourselves in our client’s shoes and have those genuine conversations of trying to get to know our client. Understanding our client’s mentality and emotional expression will also help us clearly catch those “read in-between the line” moments or “silent, but so loud” moments. I’m constantly wanting to get to know all different types of people because it gives me better insight and wisdom on the differences and similarities we have; understanding these ingredients helps me relate and connect.

Sketch Credit: Me

CONCLUSION

◊ Humanistic psychology aims to study the whole picture of human behavior, including the psychological, biological, and environmental influences design has on our health. “Humanistic architecture aims to place human welfare at the heart of the art and science of building design and environmental management” (Mazuch & Rona, 2005). The key method in studying human-centered psychology is observational research. It is the designer’s responsibility to understand and translate their observational findings to create places that are specific to functional and healing environments. I truly believe that for a designer to meet the needs of their clients, said designer must first take care of their own mental needs. Being a designer means you will be tugged in different directions constantly due to having multiple projects at one time, client indecisiveness, or both. For many of us, when we have a lot happening at one time, our minds become overstimulated. Resulting in rushed designs that were not as well thought out as they should have been- that is not good. We must remember every project is special, and so are we. We are the designer. We are the ones people are coming to seek design advice. We must have some kind of mental clarity and stability in order to give healthy, innovative, and functional advice.