Interior Architecture and Ethical Behavior - Literature review Example

INTERIOR ARCHITECTURE AND ETHICAL BEHAVIOR By Interior Architecture and Ethical Behavior Interior Design, has been seen to have various direct and indirect impacts on the environment, people, economy and culture. Therefore in interior design, there exists a close relationship between interior design and the factors affecting environmental sustainability. In other words, interior design or architecture can be used to bring out the various opportunities that interior architects can use to advocate for environmental sustainability. This paper will focus on various literature reviews and other evidence material in order to explicate what role the interior architects play in the delivery of sustainability and advocating ethical behavior in society. Moreover, the paper will examine the design process, within the framework of sustainability, that is, the design purpose, the inspiration source, methods of construction and the realization of the idea usage among others. Ultimately, it is important to examine the existing relationship between the interior architect profession to the extensive range of economic and social sustainability, and the available strategy that can be adopted by the society to uphold the concept of sustainability. According to Jureta, design is a term that can be used to describe the various decisions which ascertain how a particular space or construction will look like (2011 p.183). Hence, the term ‘design’ can be used to describe the determination of how the form of a place will look like, form in this sense, referring to all aspects of various qualities such as material structure, size, texture, shape, color among others, that can be able to differentiate one particular structure from another. On the other hand, the term interior designer or interior architect refers to a professional person who is experienced, qualified and has recognized skills that enables them to identify, research and offer solutions to all problems relating to the quality of interior development. Relatively important, the interior designer also carries out services pertaining interior spacing such as design analysis, programming, work inspection, space planning, and aesthetics using the expert knowledge on interior design. Interior architect or design is a field that is associated with multiple environmental issues and therefore the designers’ decisions result to environmental sustainability or its deterioration. Throughout the course of their work, interior designers experience a multitude of environmental issue. For instance, many interior designers are faced with issues concerning tropical deforestation, waste management, and resource consumption, the effects of global warming or “greenhouse effect” the ozone layer depletion and water pollution among others. Evaluating each of the mentioned concerns distinctively, will enable one to know how interior designers can be used to advocate for environmental sustainability. To begin with, Bonell and Bruijnzeel point out that the increase assertion in Japan, North America and Europe, for hardwood in tropical regions is met by the various forestry practices which makes the environment to be unsustainable (2005, p. 23). For instance, many companies have claimed that they only cut down a small number of trees, which they replant but in reality however, the number of trees which have been cut have resulted to the loss of the most treasured and unique forests. As a result, many animal and plant species have been destroyed or forces to migrate thereby increasing their extinction rate. Equally important, timber and wood from tropical hard woods have been highly associated with manufacturing of high value components such as musical instruments, furniture, and building materials. Therefore, this simple design decision should not be partaken unless it is highly proven that the high value components are produced in an environmentally sustainable way. By doing so, the interior designers will be able to ensure that there is environmental conservation and sustainability. Consequently, interior designers should come up with efficient ways of addressing the problem concerning waste disposal through generation of systems that will lead to the generation of less waste material. It is worth noting that this is one of the major areas that interior architect can play an important role. For instance, when making material choices, particularly those concerned with launching new material the architects should take into account the impact that the new material will have on the human and other environmental factors during its eventual disposal. In addition, the interior designers can come up with systems that can result to effective and efficient consumption of the available resources. For instance, the interior designers can create a fashion for minimalism, for instance, by designing appliances that can be able to carry out different tasks at a go. These appliances could include multi-purpose machinery that will result to a faster and more efficient output of the needed material. In addition, the interior designers have a relatively huge role to play more so in terms of reducing the greenhouse or global warming effects. Various predictions are in place for interior architects and scientists to design buildings and products which use other developed energy sources. This is aimed at increasing the energy efficiency as well as reducing the cost of production and consumption. Usually, the quantity of energy used to manufacture different products and materials differs greatly depending on their type (Interior Designers Group 2005, p. 186). For instance, even though aluminum consumes high amounts of energy it can be recycled numerous times using relatively low amounts of energy and cheaper costs. Generally speaking, designers and architects have the ability of playing an important part in the conservation of energy in various numerous ways. Some of the ways that designers can use to achieve this can be through designing products that can be recycled, indicating materials which have been produced efficiently, using solar panels and insulation materials in coherent with various building and construction techniques that can help to conserve the economy. Besides, the interior designers can play a hugely important role in saving the much depleted ozone layer from further destruction. For instance, there are relatively very few manufacturing cases that essentially require Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and therefore architects should ensure that the CFCs are not used in other cases that can use alternatives sources (Jefferis &Smith 2009, p. 638). There are various alternatives which exist for the manufacturing of various materials that use CFCs. For instance, materials such as waste paper can be used in the place of CFCs to manufacture the insulation materials. Equally, water pollution has largely deterred the steps that are put in place to assist in environmental sustainability. There are various ways in which the architects can assist in minimizing water pollution and increasing the amount of clean water that can be stored. For instance, designers can try to design household appliances that can be used for collecting and using water from various sources such as rain in a bid to save energy. This would highly cut the costs used in producing energy thus resulting to economic sustainability. Sustainable design refers to the art of crafty corporal objects as well as the construction environment to conform to the various social, ecological, economic and environmental sustainability (Williams 2007, p. 126). Sustainable design ranges from the field of designing the daily or routinely used object to those projects that can take a long period of time to be completed such as designing the sky scrapers and other city buildings. Therefore, sustainable design is mostly concerned with urban planning, interior design, architectural works, graphic design, engineering, fashion and graphic designs among other concepts. Basically, sustainable design aims at producing frameworks that can reduce the production of non-renewable products and services. Achieving this aim will consequently lead to the minimization of energy costs thereby increasing economic sustainability as well as avoiding environmental depletion. Therefore, we can view sustainable design as that type of design which uses various concepts of interior design to achieve sustainable economy, culture and environment. Conclusively, the role of the interior designer towards developing a sustainable society does not simply entail creating sustainable products, but it ideally deals with the envisioning of the various products, services and processes to encourage ethical behaviors in the society. The American Society of Interior Designers (ASID), acknowledges that sustainability is a vital part of the interior architect’s work ethics and thus it proposes that each interior designer should embrace various ethical behaviors. For instance, the interior designers should, integrated building design developed by collaborative multi-disciplinary teams, develop resources that are energy efficient, ensure the protection of the natural environment and advocate for the production of safe products and services. Doing this will enable the recycling of various products thus not only leading to a sustainable environment, but also to a sustainable social and economic way of life. Works Cited Bonell, M., & Bruijnzeel, L. A. 2004, Forests, water, and people in the humid Tropics past, present and future hydrological research for integrated land and water management. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Interior Designers Group. 2005, Interiors. New York, Billboard Publications. Jefferis, A. & Smith, K. 2009, Commercial Drafting and Detailing. Gardeners Books. Jureta, I. (2011). Analysis and design of advice. New York, Springer. Williams, D. E. 2007, Sustainable design: ecology, architecture, planning. Hoboken, Wiley. 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