Resiliency is the ability to prepare and plan for, absorb, recover from, and more successfully adapt to adverse events. Resiliency is essential for not only the buildings and spaces we design, but also in support for the people we design the space for (personal resilience) and among the community that we design the space with (industry resilience) as we move forward.
The interior design community is composed of creative problem-solvers that place people’s health, safety and wellbeing at the heart of their work. Design projects often come with challenges, both foreseen and unforeseen, and the profession has embraced this as part of the process – adapting to changes, prioritizing needs, making informed decisions through evidence-based design and using challenges as opportunities to apply greater creativity. The interior design community, including design practitioners, project/team managers, educators, industry partners, strategists, etc., exercise resilience on a daily basis when navigating through project challenges, client demands and rapid changes in the world.
ASID initiated discussions on resilience with design practitioners and industry partners, embarking on a research project to further investigate interior design resilience in partnership with Cosentino, Benjamin Moore and Emerald. The purpose of this research study is to examine attributes of interior design professionals, their experiences during the pandemic, and expected changes in the design of the built environment. This study seeks to identify issues interior design businesses and professionals face during major disruptions, track changes implemented in the industry, test the viability of industry-wide changes and demonstrate the value of design. This study is intended to be conducted in multiple phases, with this being the first.
