9 minute read Not too long ago, it was possible to graduate from interior design school without learning a computer drafting program like AutoDesk Revit, 3DS Max or SketchUp. What were students and professionals using in the field instead? Hand-drawn and rendered technical and construction drawings, of course! The Industry is Digital There is absolutely no reason to learn manual drafting for a job in interior design 2022. The industry has fully transitioned over to the use of computer aided design in architectural design offices. However, as someone who learned manual drafting as well as computer drafting, I would like to share a little about the virtues to learning traditional drafting as well as computer drafting. Let's start by talking about when and how computer drafting first became a thing. The Introduction of Computer Drafting Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com Between Two Worlds Like every other industry over the last 30 years, computers have had a slow and steady rate of adoption in the field of interior design. Computers were actually introduced to the interior design and architecture professions as far back as the 1980s. It would be a long time before the use of CAD (Computer Generated Design) software would become standard practice, however. Some early adopters were wise to see where technology was headed and embrace it. Others, who had been working with physically drawn technical and construction drawings for decades, couldn't imagine a design world without hand-drafted drawings. What's the Difference? So, what are the biggest differences between computer drafted plans and those created by hand? The biggest difference between manual drafting and CAD drafting lies in the time it takes to produce drawings. Before we jump into this in detail, let's begin with looking at some basic drafting questions, such as what drafting and manual drafting actually are. What is Drafting in Interior Design? Image credit: Wikipedia Drafting Drafting is the drawing up of plans for a design, to be used by construction professionals. These plans may be drawn by urban planners, engineers, architects, landscapers or interior designers. Drafted plans may be created for entire buildings, for individual rooms for even for furniture within the room. Separate plans are created for floors, walls (elevations) or ceilings, as well as for building systems and lighting. Drafting can be done by hand, or with the help of computer software. In either case, the plans must be accurate and drawn to scale. The interior designer or other professional will need to do careful and thorough measuring of the building (site survey)before committing pen to paper. Scale Drawing "Scale" means that it is drawn to a precise measurement, which is either reduced or enlarged from its original size. The proportions of the original and the scale "copy" should remain identical. The object is thus exactly 100 times bigger or smaller than its real world size. As an example, at 1/100 scale, one meter (or 1000 millimeters) might be represented as 10 centimeters (100 millimeters). What is Manual Drafting? Here is an example of an early manual drawing I did in design school, using a manual drafting board with a T-square. What Line Weights Mean Fine = Set up and Detail Guide lines and measurement lines are drawn in a 'thinner' or 'finer' line weight. Here, I drew the first outlines of the drawing with a mechanical pencil (not seen in the final drawing), followed by a 0.1 technical pen. Heavy = Major (Architectural) Features The heavier, more "dominant" lines in the drawing are very deliberate, as well. They represent major architectural features (in this case both exterior 'retaining' walls and interior 'partition' walls) were drawn over with a 0.5 pen. The difference between line thickness is called "line weight", and there are general rules that the drafts person must follow. Besides fine and heavy thicknesses, there is also medium weight. An average of three line weights is used in most drawings. Drafting is an Art Form Image Credit: Arch daily Reading the Lines Possibly one of the most beautiful thing about construction drawings is that nothing is done arbitrarily. Every line and every notation means something. Drafters who hone their craft long enough even go on to develop their own individually recognizable drafting style. Good drafting, while technical, is an art form in its own right. What Professions Use Manual or CAD Drafting? Manual drafting was once the standard in many industries besides interior design. It has been used in pattern making for machine parts in industrial design as well as product design. Traditional drafting was used by design engineers for building automobiles and airplanes, and by architects for planning buildings. Engineers use drafting for systems and structures. Even fashion design uses a drafting process for creating patterns. While most industries have moved to CAD, the benefits of manual technical drawing are still valid. What is CAD Drafting? CAD is short for "computer-aided design". Instead of starting from scratch every time, the computer does a lot of the heavy lifting for you. Type in the dimensions and the computer creates the lines for you. Drag, pull, snap and group. It's all intuitive and immediate. Ready, Set, Draft In a virtual design space everything is set up for you. You don't need to set up your horizon line and vanishing points. You simply model in three dimensions, while viewing the scale model from any vantage point. When you want to create a two dimensional plan, you simply view from above and export an orthographic plan view of your design. You can create plans and elevations from any angle, and export them as perspective drawings or as plans. Example of drafting from SketchUp The image above is one of the first CAD models I ever attempted using SketchUp Pro for an interior design school project, a 'universal' design-friendly kitchen. The dashed lines you see are my set up lines, marking the heights and widths of the tiles in the kitchen and the positions of openings and built in fittings. The circle on the ground represents the average radius of a turn in a wheelchair. Manual vs. CAD Drafting I read a fair bit about architecture, and a lot of experts are saying that architects graduating schools today don't know how to draw any more. Of course they can produce perfectly accurate and even flawless design drawings using CAD. What has been lost, however, is that immediacy of being able to sketch out an idea, a rough perspective or a floor plan and visualize on the spot or 'on the fly'. It seems students just aren't using pencil and paper any more. Manual Drawing is More Visceral I think about manual drafting the way I think about sketching with pencil vs. sketching on an iPad using Procreate. You might be able to skip a grade and go straight to computer art, but if you don't ever try your hand at the manual, viceral experience of working with real texture and put pen to paper, you might miss out on a formative experience. If you take designing seriously, learn how to work between mediums, such as pen and paper, mouse and screen or pen and tablet. Switching Mediums Makes You Smarter When you go between designing methods you engage a learning process called "cross-learning". Cross learning allows for bridging between concepts and even disciplines by the human brain. Like the baby that needs to learn to crawl before walking, doing at least one manual drafting project is a valuable experience for any draftsperson. How CAD Saves Time It has to be said that for creating iterations of designs, making changes to designs and quickly creating alternate views of designs, CAD comes out the winner. Being able to change material or color at the push of a button saves designers a lot of time at the drafting board. My Experience Learning Manual Drafting Photo by Karol D on Pexels.com I can't take all of the credit for learning manual drafting. It was actually a mandatory part of my design course. Manual Drafting Drafting was the third major subject for us, after material studies and the history of interior design. My school was so old school that CAD drawings only became required for projects in about 2016. SketchUp Pro At that point I was pretty glad that I taught myself how to use Sketchup, because other students had to take an extra-curricular CAD course at extra cost. Learning manual drafting was, along with the construction unit, the toughest part of my interior design course. I probably don't have to tell you that at the end of the day, it was also easily the most gratifying of my academic accomplishments, because it truly challenged me. How Manual Drafting Makes You a Better Designer A Personal Story When I reached the end of my course and had to produce my final project, I found myself in a predicament. At this point in time, I was working a full time downtown from 8:30 to almost 18:00 every day and had a two hour commute each day to and from work on top of that. The only time I had to work my exams was somehow using my cell phone for research on my commute, using pen and paper working out design problems during my lunch break, and then few hours in the evening at my PC. Forced to Work Between Mediums Pays Off At first I lamented and totally hated that I didn't have my computer during my lunch break. The result was that I had to use grid paper, a straight ruler and triangular ruler to mimic a simple T-square. It was my only option. When I sent in my preliminary project, part of my finals, I received the go ahead from the faculty to proceed with the final. They said that my hand written drawings and sketch book notes were some of the most thorough they had seen in the school's history. What I Learned About Using Manual and CAD Together I had to laugh at myself and the apparent absurdity of the situation. Necessity really is the 'mother of invention'. I solved a lot of problems going between paper and CAD, two dimensions and three. When I produced that final project, I really did feel that I knew the project inside and out. What's more, I feel like I got the full design student experience. How to Learn Manual Drafting If you're interested in architectural and interior design drafting, here are some resources for learning online. Drafting Board Drafting for Woodworkers, Woodworking University CCAC Architecture & Drafting Professional Certificate Udemy Conclusion I hope that if you've never considered drafting by hand that I've encouraged you to consider it. Begin with Manual and then Move into CAD If you have been limited to computer only, try starting with pencil and paper in the earlier phases and then move to CAD as the project progresses. If you've never used CAD and are you're worried about going from manual to CAD, you'll be happy to know if I did it, you can as well. It comes down to learning new software tools, but if you understand drafting with pen and paper, you will intuitively "get" much of the CAD as you go along. I hope that you enjoy your journey as a designer, drafting by hand as well as with CAD! If you're interested in what designer's learn in school, check out the post below. https://designbaddie.com/what-you-will-learn-in-interior-design-school-an-overview/
Believe it or not, the interior design profession as we know it hasn’t been around that long. The first professional decorator accepted payment from a client roughly 120 years ago, but interior design as an industry has evolved a great deal since then. Hi. Thanks for joining me! Today we're going to look at why interior design exists at all. It's a fair question. To explore this, we'll look at interior design as is a field of study and also as a profession. I'll also cover four of what I think are the biggest reasons that interior design exists and will only continue to thrive. Reason 1 - Interior Design is a Necessary Specialization of Architecture While architecture itself is beautiful, interior designers bring the human needs of a space into focus. Comparison Of Interior Design with the Nursing Profession Here we'll be looking at the profession of interior design. To understand the first reason for why interior design exists in the first place, let's use a comparative example found in the history of the nursing profession. You may be aware from your old history class that the nursing profession rose from the practice of medicine which was once performed solely by doctors. It's hard to believe now, but in the late eighteen hundreds, hospitals employed doctors, but there were no official nurses. The nursing profession pretty much hadn't been "invented" yet. This is true of interior design as well. Here's why. Interior Design Was Once Practiced By Architects The practice of designing interiors was once the pervue of the architect. The idea of a dedicated interior design professional came about in the boom years after the second world war, when it became more common place to renovate and refurbish homes. Another formative factor in the interior design profession was the need for specially trained designers to plan interiors in the retail and commercial spaces. So just as nurses became established in the field of medicine by recognizing a need and then organizing themselves to fill it, interior decorators and designers, too, sought to fill a need in their field. Design professionals then began organizing themselves and creating the educational resources and associations that would train the designers of the future. Designers are innovators and world changers! Reason 2 - Specialization is More Economical Differences in Education for Interior Designers vs Architects Both architects and doctors have to work a long time at becoming full fledged doctors and architects. Architects study for at least five years and don't get licensed until they've practiced under another licensed architect for several years after that. The entire process can take from seven to nine years, depending on their individual path. Doctors too, study at least eight years. On the other hand, nurses and interior designers both specialize in a smaller part of the whole "subject", and thus can get their education in less time, usually about three to five years. This opens the door for those who are interested in specializing in interiors to make their mark. Why Specialization is the Modern Way As buildings have become more and more complex, the need to specialize within the industry has become more apparent. Architects still oversee the entire project, but often have many subcontractors. Among these are systems specialists, engineeers, construction companies and, yes, interior design companies, who do the interior fit-outs and stock the the building with human necessities. For this reason, many large architectural firms have in-house interior design departments. Those that don't, outsource. Specialization has allowed humans to prgress. Nurses, as well as interior designers, are happy to be a part of that progress. The Architecture and Design of Interiors in History Architects fully dominated both the external and internal design of buildings through history. Beyond the skills of the commissioned craftsmen that the architects employed there were few, (if any), interior specialists. Yes, before the advent of interior design the interior was served by highly skilled craftsmen who were apprenticed to the architect. In the days of the Italian Renaissance, for example, many stone cutters went on to become architects once they had been practicing long enough to be considered masters. Historical Architects Were Often Interior Focused First So instead of narrowing their focus on the interior, aspiring architects worked their way up from interior work to designing whole buildings. They focused very much on order, symmetry and beauty in classical design, and less on the actual livability of spaces. Architects took great pride in their work, and they designed their buildings down to the fine details, which included the interiors. It goes without saying that turnaround times on projects were also quite draconian back then. It is through the legacy of the talented trades-people who crafted the classical interior fittings and decorations that we have come to have many recognized interior design "styles" today. Reason 3 - Interior Design is a Trusted Partner to Interior Design’s Neighboring Professions What Do Interior Designers Actually Do? Some people are confused about what an interior designer actually does. If you study interior design you'll realize this is the case the more people you talk to who are outside of the world of design. -Do interior designers focus on decorating? -Choose paint colors? -Design cabinetry? -Select fittings and appliances? The answer, in case you were wondering, is: All of these and more. It’s a reasonable question to ask: Why are interior design specialists needed? The way I like to think of it is that interior design fills a gap between where architects leave off (the building's broader design) and the human needs of a space beg for attention. Here are some of the questions interior designers will ask: -How will the space be used? -What equipment, fittings and furniture will be needed? -How will it be space planned? -How will zoning work? -How will safety protocols be addressed? -What should the aesthetics of the space be? -All of these require practical consideration and planning. This is the role of interior design. Interior Designers "Program" Physical Space If architecture is responsible for giving us a machine for living (and working in!), as Le Corbusier claimed, I'd argue that interior design gives us the program for how to live in it. Rather than being a mandate, the design of an interior is a result of the collaboration between a designer and the one who the design is made for. Interior design is planning with careful consideration for all of the aspects in which the inhabitants or users will interact with the building; how and with respect to what. Enhancing the Function of Space Interior design ensures that those who use the building are able to interact with it and utilize it properly, down to the fine details. Interior design is also concerned with integrating or enhancing the aesthetics of the architectural shell by translation or juxtaposition to improve the experience of the end user. Allowing for Greener and More Economical Adaptive Reuse Interior design professional services are often called on to restore an old or dilapidated space, or to change the interior room divisions and space planning, for example. Interior design contractors work with specialists to enhance, change or add to architectural interior features (staircases, bathroom features like showers, skylights, windows, doors and lofts, etc.) in the "highest" form of interior design, interior architecture. It's widely recognized that converting, renovating and restoring existing buildings is a better alternative to creating entirely new buildings from scratch. Interior design, like it's big brother Architecture, is part art and part science. The Evolution and Expanding Scope of Interior Design Interior design has evolved since its beginnings as a decorating service to the households of high society at the turn of the twentieth century to the well-established and expansive profession that it is today. An academically-qualified or properly certified commercial interior designer is, or can be described as, part 'decorator' and part 'interior architect'. An interior design professional may fill many roles in the scope of a single project. These "many hats" include: Surveyor Space planner Conceptual designer/artist Graphic designer Drafts-person (CAD specialist) Furniture, fittings and appliance specifier Project manager Team coordinator Marketing specialist Contract negotiator Contract bidder Interior Designers are Project Managers Each of these tasks can theoretically be outsourced to other industry specialists, and sometimes are, however a good way to think of the role of the interior designer is that they are ultimately responsible for the whole vision coming together. An interior designer must also be trained to do all of these different jobs, often wearing many hats in just one project. If an architect and an interior designer were working together on the Sagrada Familia, where would the responsibilities or scope of work be divided? Some answers are obvious. Some less so. Interior Design Industry Partners While we've talked a lot about the relationship between architecture and interior design, it's worth exploring the other industries without which interior design could not exist. Home goods and furniture On the boundaries of interior design firms we have home goods and furniture retail, flooring, tiling and painting services, fit-out services and other specialties within the construction industry, such as electricians and plumbers. Real estate The real estate industry is closely tied to interior design through staging and renovation for resale. Construction Construction is major neighboring profession to the practice of inteior design and often the work of architects, designers, engineers and construction professionals meets in areas where their skills overlap. Construction companies might have in-house design services and some designers run design-build companies. Architects Who Design Interiors and Interior Designers Who Architect Some architectural firms also have in-house interior design departments. Some interior design firms work exclusively in the realm of interior architecture. There have been many architects who design and specify products down the furniture in their projects (Le Corbusier, and Zaha Hadid, for example), but these days, it often makes more sense for architectural offices to have in-house dedicated interior design practitioners or to outsource to interior design specialists. Quick fact: The average commercial project can take 6-10 months for a design firm and requires the coordination of up to a dozen trades, all while handling permits and construction documentation. The management of human resources, including both internal staff and clients by the firm, is also part of the process. Reason 4 - Interior Design Will Continue to Shape the World Interior design is an amazing profession and is responsible for the health, happiness and enjoyment of each of us every day of our lives. From public buildings like libraries and art galleries to exhibitions, restaurants, shops and private homes, the work of interior designers will continue to inspire, nourish and support us as we go about our lives. Gone are the days that only the richest people hired interior designers. These days we know that design is important to creating the optimal environments for us to live and work in, and it is becoming less questioned and more a matter of course. The next time you open up your Instagram feed and see an interior you love, give some thought to the work that goes into creating a beautiful and harmonious space. When we factor in the need to change the way we build and live in order to create a better and greener tomorrow, I think you’ll start to see why the work of interior designers matters, today more than ever. Don't forget, too, that there is a whole new exciting world yet to be built in the future of "Web 3", or what some are calling the metaverse. If that's not a job for architects and designers, I don't know what is! Yes, my Design Baddie friends, that ought to keep all of us busy for a good, long time to come. Sign up for our awesome newsletter, "Baddie Bites" to get the quick version of what's going on in the virtual design world and how you can get started on your own journey in design. We'd love to have you as part of our growing community. Happy design learning, Baddies! http://designbaddie.com/two-often-overlooked-reasons-why-interior-design-is-important/
