the characteristics of interior designers who practice environmentally sustainable interior design

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2009 41: 170 originally published online 1 May 2008Environment and BehaviorMihyun Kang and Denise A. Guerin

Environmentally Sustainable Interior DesignThe Characteristics of Interior Designers Who Practice

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The Characteristics ofInterior Designers WhoPractice EnvironmentallySustainable Interior DesignMihyun KangOklahoma State UniversityDenise A. GuerinUniversity of Minnesota

This study examined the characteristics of interior designers who apply envi-ronmentally sustainable interior design criteria to their projects. A national,Internet-based survey was conducted with a random sample of AmericanSociety of Interior Designers members. Inferential statistical analysisfocused on the relationship between interior designers’ characteristics andenvironmentally sustainable interior design practice. Findings indicate a sig-nificant relationship between an interior designer’s characteristics and howoften the designer applies environmentally sustainable interior design to pro-jects and between the designer’s characteristics and how important environ-mentally sustainable interior design is to the interior designer. However, nosignificant relationship was found between a designer’s characteristics andhow important environmentally sustainable interior design is to the designer’sfirm. The size of interior design projects was a predictor for frequency ofapplication of environmentally sustainable interior design practice, whereasdesign practice specialization was a predictor for the importance of environ-mentally sustainable interior design to the designer.

Keywords: sustainable design; interior designers; interior design practice;environment

During the late 1970s and early 1980s, a number of independent peopleworldwide began working on responses to problems in which issues

of the environment interrelated with human development and progress. The

Environment and BehaviorVolume 41 Number 2March 2009 170-184

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170

Authors’ Note: The authors greatly appreciate the Irene Winifred Eno Grant to conduct thisstudy from the American Society of Interior Designers Foundation.

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concept of sustainable development was born as a means of realizing the devel-opmental needs of humans without sacrificing the earth’s capacity to sustainlife. The most common definition of sustainable development comes from OurCommon Future by the World Commission on Environment and Development(1987), better known as the Brundtland Commission, a United Nations’ organi-zation headed by former Norwegian prime minister Gro Harlem Brundtland.In Our Common Future, sustainable development is defined as an approachthat “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of futuregenerations to meet their own needs” (p. 43).

Various interpretations of sustainability emphasize the environmental,economic, and social aspects to different degrees (Toman, 1994). Forexample, environmentalists and ecologists emphasize sustainable interac-tions with natural systems. Economists tend to emphasize the economicstandard of living and sustainable economic development. Sociologists andanthropologists give greater emphasis to social and cultural factors andquality of life issues. Sometimes the term sustainability is used in a nar-rower sense, such as when an environmental group focuses solely on envi-ronmental sustainability. In its fullest sense, researchers found sustainabilityinvolves a balance of environmental, economic, and social concerns con-sidered over the long term (Aplet, Johnson, Olson, & Sample, 1993; BritishColumbia Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, 1993;Goodland & Daly, 1996; Munasinghe & McNeely, 1995; Munro, 1995;Sheng, 1995; Viederman, 1996). These researchers have suggested that sus-tainable actions occur at the conceptual interaction of environmental, eco-nomic, and social dimensions, which is where the three dimensions areintegrated.

This integrative model also shows interrelationships and trade-offsamong the parts, which relates to sustainable interior designers’ abilities tominimize the negative impacts and maximize the positive impacts on envi-ronmental, economic, and social systems over the life cycle of the interiorcomponents of a building. Environmental issues have not been universallysignificant interior design criteria and they need to be emphasized toachieve environmental, economic, and social sustainability.

Environmentally Sustainable Interior Design

Environmentally sustainable interior design is based on sustainabledesign principles and strategies that are common for the built environment.The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green

Kang, Guerin / Characteristics of Interior Designers 171



Building Rating System includes five environmental topics: site, water,energy, materials and resources, and indoor environmental quality. Amongthese topics, indoor environmental quality and interior materials are thetopics especially related to interior design. Indoor environmental qualityincludes indoor air quality and human comfort; interior materials includeinput reduction, output management, and life cycle design.

The indoor environmental quality of a building has a significant effecton its occupants. Individuals in the U.S. spend 90% of their time in indoorspaces, and indoor air quality can be two to five times worse than outdoorair quality. Therefore, many buildings create unhealthy and potentially dan-gerous interior environments for occupants. Providing an interior environ-ment for occupants that is physiologically and psychologically healthyemerged as a crucial issue for sustainable interior design, with particularemphasis on indoor air quality and human comfort.

Indoor air quality refers to the quality of the air inside a building and is rep-resented by concentrations of pollutants and thermal (temperature and relativehumidity) conditions that affect the health, comfort, and performance of occu-pants (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2003). Complaints about indoorair quality have ranged from simple criticisms such as the air smelling odd tomore complex grievances in which the air quality causes illness and lost worktime. Indoor air quality is affected by the decisions of multiple design pro-fessionals, including architects, engineers, and interior designers. Architectsand engineers are responsible for such matters as building systems, air flow,and building materials, whereas interior designers are responsible for suchmatters as integration of space planning with building HVAC and specify-ing furnishings, materials, and finishes.

Other factors affecting occupants, such as light and noise, are alsoimportant indoor environmental quality considerations. Appropriate ther-mal conditions, effective lighting, and appropriate building acousticalvibration conditions are strategies used to promote human comfort. Anotherstrategy is improved connection to the natural environment, which may beaccomplished by creating views to reduce stress and improve human comfort.All are components that interior designers should consider in the problem-solving process for sustainable interior space.

Interior furnishings, materials, and finishes require significant quantities ofnatural resources for their extraction, transport, processing, fabrication, manu-facture, installation, use, reuse, recycling, and disposal (California IntegratedWaste Management Board, 2002). Specification of sustainable interior materialspromotes conservation of nonrenewable resources through input reduction andoutput management. Input reduction refers to reducing the flow of nonrenewable

172 Environment and Behavior



resources (energy, water, and raw or intermediate materials) into interior mate-rials. Output management refers to reducing environmental effects by produc-ing a low level of waste and by using proper waste management. These effortscan be applied throughout the life cycle of interior materials.

In summary, a sustainable interior design approach emphasizes environ-mental issues, but environmental issues have not been viewed as significantdesign criteria in the interior design process. Environmentally sustainableinterior design promotes indoor environmental quality by improving indoorair quality and human comfort and by using sustainable interior materials.

Interior Design Practice

Interior designers create and develop interior environments to improve qualityof life; to increase productivity; and to protect the public’s health, safety, and wel-fare (National Council for Interior Design Qualification, 2003). To achieve thesegoals, interior designers advance though four career stages to become qualifiedpractitioners. Guerin and Martin (2001) defined these four stages as education,experience, examination, and legal regulation. Interior designers are first educatedin school and then gain professional experience in the field. Based on educationand experience, design practitioners take a qualifying examination, the NationalCouncil for Interior Design Qualification (NCIDQ), which is one of the creden-tials required for certification or licensure in designers’ jurisdictions.

Interior design schools and some practices have begun to implement envi-ronmentally sustainable interior design in the design process. Likewise, somedesigners are applying sustainable solutions for interior problems and othersare not, whereas some interior designers have more interest than others inenvironmental issues. With knowledge of the characteristics of interior design-ers who are applying sustainable solutions to their projects, one can determinethe direction for sustainable design education and make it applicable through-out a designer’s career cycle. To date, no study has been conducted to exam-ine these relationships. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to determine thecharacteristics of designers who are applying environmentally sustainableinterior design to their projects.

Method

To determine the characteristics of interior designers who are applyingenvironmentally sustainable interior design to their projects, a national,





Internet-based survey of interior design practitioners was conducted. Theindependent variables were the characteristics of interior designers and thedependent variable was environmentally sustainable interior design prac-tice. Characteristics of the designers were divided into two groups: personalcharacteristics about the respondents and information about the designers’professional credentials based on the stages of the interior designer careercycle (Guerin & Martin, 2001). Environmentally sustainable interior designwas defined by three factors: global sustainable interior design, indoorenvironmental quality, and interior materials. Frequency of application ofsustainable design criteria and importance in each respondent’s interiordesign practice were also measured.

Population and Sample

The population of this study was U.S. interior design practitioners in aprofessional interior design organization, the American Society of InteriorDesigners (ASID). ASID is a nonprofit professional society representingthe interests of interior designers and the interior design community. ASIDhas more than 40,000 members comprised of practicing interior designers,students, and industry partners. The sample of this study was obtained fromASID’s practicing members whose e-mail addresses were available(approximately 65% of ASID). ASID provided the e-mail addresses of ran-domly selected members without personal or professional information.Because of membership requirements, all respondents had at least twoyears of experience.

Instrumentation and Variables

Data were collected using a questionnaire with a series of 35 written ques-tions on interior designers’ characteristics and environmentally sustainableinterior design practice based on LEED criteria. Questions were divided intotwo sections. The first section included factual multiple-choice questionsrelating to the respondents’ personal characteristics and professional creden-tials. Personal characteristics focused on geographic regions of employmentand practice. The geographic regions matched the four regions and nine divi-sions used by the U.S. Census Bureau. For employment, each respondent wasasked to indicate the geographical region in which his/her office is located.Regarding practice, each respondent was asked to indicate the location inwhich the majority of his/her regional and international interior design pro-jects had been in the last two years. Professional credentials included educa-tion, experience, examination, and regulation related to interior design. Two




questions for education asked about a degree from a Council of InteriorDesign Accreditation (CIDA) (formerly the Foundation for Interior DesignEducation Research) accredited interior design program and continuing edu-cation courses in sustainable design. Three questions for experience inquiredabout years of practice, specialty, and the size of the designer’s typical inte-rior design projects. The examination question asked whether respondentshad passed the NCIDQ examination, and the regulation question askedwhether the respondent was licensed or certified by the state in which he/shepracticed interior design.

The second section focused on the use of sustainable interior design prac-tice. Respondents were asked to respond to three global sustainability state-ments, nine statements regarding indoor environmental quality, and 14statements about interior materials. For each statement, respondents wereasked to rate three dimensions: frequency of application, importance to thedesigner’s firm, and importance to the designer, according to a Likert-typescale. The first draft of the questionnaire was pretested to reduce ambiguity.

The data collected from this survey were analyzed using multiple regres-sion to identify which interior designer characteristic is the best predictorof environmentally sustainable interior design practice. Multiple regressionenables the analysis of a set of data in which independent variables arebeing used to explain the variation in a single dependent variable.

Results

Usable responses were received from 305 interior designers, which wasan overall response rate of 7.66%, an acceptable response rate for anInternet-based survey.

Characteristics of the Sample

Descriptive statistics were used to present the respondents’ characteristics.Each characteristic’s frequency and percentage of distribution is provided inTable 1 and Table 2. Table 1 presents the respondents’ geographic regions ofemployment and practice. The two divisions with the greatest number ofrespondent offices were the South Atlantic (23.6%) and the West Pacific(21.0%), which were also the two divisions with the greatest number ofrespondent projects (West Pacific 22.3% and South Atlantic 21.3%).

The data showed that 63.6% of the respondents had received a degreefrom a CIDA-accredited interior design program (see Table 2). A continuingeducation or professional development course about sustainable design hadbeen taken by 55.1% of the respondents.




Regarding experience, the majority of respondents (57.4%) worked pri-marily in residential design; more than one third of the respondents (37%)worked primarily in commercial design. Table 2 shows that respondentswho worked in commercial design specialized in the following areas:corporate/office (19.3%), health care (4.9%), educational (4.3%), hospitality/entertainment (3.6%), government/institutional (2.6%), financial institu-tions (1%), retail (1%), and child care (0.3%). No respondents specializedin recreational or religious design.

Regarding years of practice, the highest number of respondents (36.1%)had practiced interior design for more than 20 years. A large number ofrespondents (43.9%) reported the size of a typical interior design project as3,001 to 6,000 ft2, which may reflect that the majority of respondents(57.4%) worked primarily in residential design.

Table 1Personal Characteristics

FrequencyCharacteristic (N = 305) %

Geographical region of employment Northeast: New England 4 1.3Northeast: Middle Atlantic 24 7.9Midwest: East North Central 45 14.8Midwest: West North Central 18 5.9South: South Atlantic 72 23.6South: East South Central 12 3.9South: West South Central 40 13.1West: Mountain 25 8.2West: Pacific 64 21Others 1 0.3

Geographical region of practiceNortheast: New England 6 2Northeast: Middle Atlantic 23 7.5Midwest: East North Central 42 13.8Midwest: West North Central 19 6.2South: South Atlantic 65 21.3South: East South Central 12 3.9South: West South Central 39 12.8West: Mountain 27 8.9West: Pacific 68 22.3Others 1 0.3No response 3 1




Table 2Professional Characteristics

FrequencyCharacteristic (N = 305) Percent (%)

Degree from CIDA accredited programYes 194 63.6No 110 36.1No response 1 0.3

Continuing education/professional courseYes 168 55.1No 136 44.6No response 1 0.3

SpecialtyChild care 1 0.3Financial institutions 3 1Government/institutional 8 2.6Health care 15 4.9Hospitality/entertainment 11 3.6Educational 13 4.3Corporate/office 59 19.3Recreational 0 0Religious 0 0Residential 175 57.4Retail 3 1Others 17 5.6

Years of practice2-5 years 51 16.76-10 years 50 16.411-15 years 48 15.76-20 years 46 15.1More than 20 years 110 36.1

Size of interior design projectsLess than 3,000 ft2 73 23.93,001 to 6,000 ft2 134 43.96,001 to 20,000 ft2 60 19.720,001 to 50,000 ft2 22 7.2More than 50,000 ft2 16 5.3

NCIDQ examinationYes 168 55.1No 137 44.9

State license or certification Yes 140 45.9No 163 53.4No response 2 0.7

Note: CIDA = Council of Interior Design Accreditation; NCIDQ = National Council forInterior Design Qualification.



Table 2 shows that 55.1% of respondents had passed the NCIDQ exam-ination and 45.9% of respondents were state licensed or certified as interiordesigners, if applicable. The percentage of designers licensed/certified maybe misleading, as, at the time of this study, only 26 states have some formof legal recognition for interior design.

Findings

Before running the multiple regression analysis, a correlation coefficientwas computed between the independent variables. The correlation coeffi-cient between the geographical region of employment and practice was.932, suggesting the presence of multicollinearity. Therefore, one of thevariables with a correlation higher than .80, geographical region of practicewas excluded from the multiple regression analysis, although geographicalregion of employment was retained.

Multiple regression was conducted to investigate the relationships inthree categories: frequency of application, importance to designer’s firm,and importance to designer. Table 3 presents the three models of multipleregression analysis. The F-value indicates whether the independent vari-ables, taken together, are significantly associated with the dependent vari-able. The obtained F-values were 2.446, 1.837, and 2.312. The obtainedF-value is statistically significant if it is bigger than the critical F-value. Thecritical F value was 1.97 for each of the three models with the degree of free-dom (df1 = 8, df2 = 291, frequency of application; df1 = 8, df2 = 290, impor-tance to designer’s firm; df1 = 8, df2 = 292, importance to the designer) atthe 0.05 level of α. The F-value was statistically significant for two of themodels, frequency of application and importance to designer. However, theF-value was not statistically significant for importance to designer’s firm.Therefore, the results provide preliminary evidence that the models for fre-quency of application and importance to designer have some utility.

For the frequency of application and importance to designer models, at-test was conducted. The t-value presents whether the relationship of eachindependent variable with the dependent variable is statistically significantor not, with all other independent variables taken into account. Theobtained t-value is statistically significant if its absolute value is bigger thanthe absolute value of the critical t-value.

The α was equally assigned among t-tests at the .05 level and the criticalt-value with degree of freedom (df = 291, frequency of application; df = 292,importance to designer) was ±2.51 for both models. Regarding the modelfor frequency of application, the obtained t-value of size of interior design




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179



project, 2.545, was bigger than the critical t-value. Therefore, the size of theinterior design project is statistically significant, which indicates that thebigger the size of the interior design project, the more frequently environ-mental sustainable interior design criteria were applied to the project.

Regarding the model for importance to designers, the obtained t-value ofspecialty, -2.533, was bigger than the critical t-value. Therefore, interiordesigner specialty had a significant relationship with how important interiordesigners consider environmentally sustainable interior design practice. It wasmore important, in decreasing order, to designers who specialized in the fol-lowing fields: child care, educational, hospitality/entertainment, financial insti-tutions, health care, government/institutional, corporate/office, residential, andretail design. No respondents specialized in recreational or religious design.

Discussion

Through the results of multiple regression, it appears that interiordesigner characteristics were related to how often interior designers appliedenvironmentally sustainable interior design to their projects. However, theonly characteristic that proved to be a predictor for frequency of applicationwas the size of the interior design project, being applied more frequently tolarger projects. The greater use of these practices in larger projects could bebecause of a number of factors, including the proposed cost of the interiordesign and increased construction time.

The study results also showed a significant relationship between interiordesigner characteristics and how important environmentally sustainable inte-rior design practice is to designers. However, no significant relationship wasfound between interior designer characteristics and importance of sustainablepractices to designers’ firms. Designer specialty was the predictor of environ-mentally sustainable interior design practice for importance to the designer. Asstated earlier, designers specializing in child care and educational facilitiesmost often used sustainable interior design practices. Other specialties, indescending order, were hospitality/entertainment, financial institutions, healthcare, government/institutional, corporate/office, residential, and retail design.These results indicate that interior designers specializing in child care facili-ties and educational facilities consider sustainable design more importantthan do designers who specialize in other areas of interior design.

Indoor air quality in schools has been of particular concern as it encom-passes the safety of the students, staff, and faculty. Good indoor air qualitycontributes to a positive learning environment for students, productivity for




teachers and staff, and a sense of comfort and health for all school occu-pants. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (2003) has reported thatindoor air quality in schools improved by implementing the Indoor AirQuality Tools for Schools Kit and program. Because indoor air quality inschools has been of particular concern, interior designers who specialize inchild care design and educational facility design might have been morelikely to recognize the importance of sustainable interior design.

Prior to the study, it was anticipated that interior designers who specializein health care design and government/institutional design might consider envi-ronmentally sustainable interior design more important. Health care designhas moved toward improving patient health and well-being and governmentalorganizations have made efforts to build green buildings. However, this studyshowed that interior designers who specialize in hospitality/entertainmentdesign and financial institution design considered sustainable interior designmore important than did interior designers who specialize in health care andgovernment/institutional design. Interior designers who specialize in residen-tial design and retail design considered environmentally sustainable interiordesign less important than other designers.

Assumptions and Limitations

Three primary assumptions were involved in conducting this study: 1)that sustainable design is an important and valid construct in interior designpractice; 2) that environmental, economic, and social sustainability havedifferent underlying goals and that these three dimensions should be inte-grated and negotiated for sustainability; and 3) that survey research is anappropriate method to determine the state of sustainable interior designpractice and the characteristics of interior designers.

This study, however, examined only the environmental dimension ofsustainability and did not examine the economic and social dimensions.Furthermore, studies that deal with the economic and social dimensionswill be necessary to better understand sustainable interior design practice.

The sample of this study was obtained from the ASID, who provided a listof randomly selected e-mail addresses in an effort to provide an adequate sam-ple size and a general reflection of the population. However, the question thatfrequently arises in survey research is whether the respondents are representa-tive of the total population or whether there is some bias in who responded andwho did not. The characteristics of the respondents of this study could not becompared with the characteristics of the population because the characteristics





of the population were not known. Therefore, it may be that individuals inter-ested in sustainable interior design were more likely to respond to this survey.If that is so, follow-up telephone interviews could be attempted with individ-uals who did not return questionnaires. A goal of such interviews would be todetermine if the characteristics of nonrespondents were similar to the charac-teristics of respondents.

Only interior design practitioners who are members of ASID and whohave e-mail and Internet access could participate in this study. ASID hade-mail addresses for 65% of its interior design practicing members; it didnot include any personal or professional characteristics. Although Internetsurveys are likely to become more popular because of the speed of collect-ing data and the low cost, the response rate is lower than the response ratesfor mail and telephone surveys (Watt, 1997).

Conclusions and Implications

Through this study, a national, Internet-based survey of interior designpractitioners gathered data to determine the characteristics of designerswho practice environmentally sustainable interior design. Three major find-ings were determined from this study:

• A significant relationship exists between interior designer characteristicsand how often designers applied environmentally sustainable interiordesign criteria to projects. In addition, the size of interior design projectswas a predictor for frequency of application of environmentally sustain-able interior design practice.

• No significant relationship exists between interior designer characteristicsand how important environmentally sustainable interior design is todesigner firms.

• A significant relationship exists between interior designer characteristicsand how important environmentally sustainable interior design is to design-ers. In addition, the area of design specialty was a predictor for importanceto the designer for environmentally sustainable interior design practice.

On learning the characteristics of interior designers who are applying envi-ronmentally sustainable interior design practices to their projects, one candetermine the direction for sustainable interior design education for undergrad-uates and continuing education for practitioners. This study showed that envi-ronmentally sustainable interior design practice was more frequently applied tolarger projects. Therefore, demonstrating environmentally sustainable design




in small buildings might promote the use of such practices in projects of asmaller scale. The study also showed that specialty is related to the impor-tance of environmentally sustainable interior design practice. Therefore,development of sustainable interior guidelines and/or continuing educationprograms for design practitioners, based on a particular specialty to assurethe specific needs of that specialty, might be helpful to increase the aware-ness of the importance of sustainable interior design. As a result of improvededucation, interior design practitioners and students will be able to more fre-quently apply sustainable interior design to increase the health, safety, andwelfare of the people who live, play, and work in the built environment.

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World Commission on Environment and Development. (1987). Our common future. Oxford:Oxford University Press.

Mihyun Kang is an assistant professor of interior design in the Department of Design,Housing and Merchandising, College of Human Environmental Sciences, at Oklahoma StateUniversity. Her research focuses on sustainable interior design issues to minimize negativeeffects and maximize positive impacts on environmental, economic, and social systems overthe life cycle of the building.

Denise A. Guerin is a Morse-Alumni Distinguished Professor of interior design in theDepartment of Design, Housing and Apparel, College of Design, at the University ofMinnesota. She is a fellow of the Interior Design Educators Council, is president of the IDECFoundation, and contributes to the Council for Interior Design Accreditation and the NationalCouncil for Interior Design Qualification. She served as editor for the Journal of InteriorDesign. She is the coprincipal investigator on a grant from the American Society of InteriorDesigners to create and operate InformeDesign®, a searchable database on research and designcriteria for design and human behavior.




the characteristics of interior designers who practice environmentally sustainable interior design

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