Kansas State University

Note from the Department Head

The end of last week, I had the opportunity to participate in the Council for Interior Design Accreditation (CIDA) Future Vision session, along with practitioners, industry and design educators as we "embrace the changes facing interior design in 2017 and beyond." Click here to learn more about the participants, Adam Stover ('02) (Populous) was one of only eleven practitioners selected from North America to participate in this visioning event. We began at a global scale, projecting those trends affecting people, the economy, technology, and more; then working our way to the scale of the types and levels of skills and knowledge graduates of interior design-accredited programs must have to enter the profession. While many recurring themes emerged and are being analyzed by the CIDA Standards Board, I noticed that design research in its many forms created a thread throughout our informal discussions. 

This week, we have an opportunity to celebrate and learn from the design research occurring throughout our own college. Opportunities to learn from our own and other disciplines are critical to our mission in IAPD, which is one of the reasons it is important that you advantage yourselves by attending the variety of lectures and symposiums as they occur.

The end of this week will find me in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where I will represent IDEC at the 2014 CIDQ Annual Council of Delegates Meeting. You may not realize the heritage of NCIDQ (the professional qualifying examination for the practice of interior design), but 2014 marks the 40th Anniversary of the NCIDQ Exam - an important milestone!

As work intensifies and time grows ever shorter, please remember that you are readying yourself to be a design professional who is prepared to make profound impacts on the lives of those who enter the built environment to work, live, or play. I will remind you that the design decisions you make at all scales affect well-being, productivity, teamwork, peaceful relationships, enjoyment, and health of building occupants. Your sensitivity to human needs and conditions empowers those with different abilities, and sets a stage for acceptance or differentiation. Indeed, your knowledge and application of that knowledge will create situations that in emergencies (such as a fire) could make the difference between life and death. How much difference does design make? Catch a glimpse at the APDesign Research Symposium!

Wishing you a wonderful week,
Kathy

APDesign Research Symposium Acceptance! 

Congratulations to 4th year IAPD students in Professor Vibha Jani's Design Research class who have been accepted into the APDesign Research Symposium taking place on Thursday and Friday (November 13-14)! The following students submitted abstracts for blind review and have been accepted to present their work: