Any client embarking on building, remodeling, or making changes to their residences has many choices to make in achieving the optimum results.

What is the ultimate goal for undertaking this endeavor?

Do you want to be a sheep and follow the crowd by choosing current trends, what’s new, what’s traditional, what’s cost-effective, what’s least polluting, what’s least expensive, or what is quickest?

Do you want to design a marketable result for selling to a mass market sometime in the future?

Do you want to show the world your current, or desired, social, economic, prestige, or some other status standing?

Do you just want to satisfy your personal comfort and likes regardless of the results?

Or do you want to make a brave choice, by thinking outside the box, and design a residence that elevates the results to a higher quality and more advanced level of function, intelligence, aesthetics, creativity, and complete living experience?

These choices, and many others, are available.

What choices will, or did, you make for where you live?

The results of any design are determined by the intelligent use of the laws of physics and the principles of aesthetics.

Food for thought.

Most residential interior spaces, rooms, are based on some variation of the rectangle.

This rectangular shape can be manifest in virtually unlimited variations and sizes.

This specific shape has six planes.

The wall will be four of these planes. Various openings, doors and windows, will be cut into the walls and various additions such as cabinets, moldings, and light fixtures can be added. The finishing material, color, texture, and pattern are chosen.

The floor, the fifth plane, has to be built for weight and stability, finishing material chosen, color and texture selected, and the use of rugs decided.

Much thought, and input, is extended for these five planes to manifest the ambiance and function of the room.

The ceiling, the sixth plane, is usually painted white and ignored.

Why?

The ceiling and floor are basically the same area, and yet, one is designed with great efforts and planning, and the other is not.

The ceiling is often treated as the unwanted stepchild of a room.

The principles shown here can be applied to non-rectangular situations.

Many of the international residential interior design photographs, which come across my desk, have walls and ceilings expressed similarly so that the results appear as designed furnishings in a box.

Get out of your rut. Expand and explore traditional approaches. Use your intelligence for creativity and imagination.

If you want to experience the highest levels of beauty, think of rooms as six planes manifestations with each plane being an equal part in the final complete aesthetic composition.

How would you evaluate the ceilings, of where you live, for their overall contribution to the enhancement of your house?

Food for thought.

“People can’t see what you’ve got,” said an observer to someone who was putting a decorative brick wall in front of his house.

“She built her house so you can’t see it from the road“, was expressed by a woman’s neighbors.

What’s this big deal about passers-by seeing what message you are sending out to the world, from the roadside view, is to be seen as what you’re worth?

Most often, this position, which is completely different from curb appeal, is to “show” the world your financial and social status.

Why is it important to the people who do it, and what does it say about their personality traits and characteristics?

What needs does doing such fulfill for them?

For whom is a house to be designed and built? And, for what purposes, and activities, is it being built?

What part does the front facade play in the complete outside design of a house? Is it the only outside part to be designed?

If you are a whole, complete person, who is stable and comfortable with your financial and social status, you should have no need, or desire, to care how passers-by react when viewing your facade.

Houses should be designed and built, inside and outside, to the highest aesthetic levels for the functions of the structure and to reflect the personalities of the people who will use it.

What does the front of your house say about you? What does it mean to you? What are your reactions when seeing the front facades of other people’s?

Food for thought.

Constantly coming across my desk are what some interior designers would always, or never, have in their homes.

Some point out what looks outdated, and some give examples to update.

Present trends in colors, furnishings, desirable and undesirable features, additions, changes for appearances, and what raises or lowers the financial worth of a house in the current market are noted by professionals in the housing industry.

What new resources, techniques, requirements, and other options are available?

Many times, these guidelines are one hundred and eighty degrees from each other.

How is a layperson to digest this flood of information for personally accurate and usable information?

By asking pertinent questions of yourself.

Who are you, and where do you want to reside?

What are your current, short-term, and long-term financial options to obtain this goal?

What, while occupying this place, are your present-day and future lifestyles?

What personal expressions do you want for now and for years to come?

Do you prefer the ambiance in your living environment to be constant or to vary?

What, in order, are the priorities for where you live?

How long do you plan to live there?

Are positions opinions or validated by scientific facts?

Use your intelligence to research and evaluate the wheat from the husks to obtain what is needed for your decisions.

Using the guidance of professional services will be a more tranquil process and produce a higher level of quality results.

Food for thought.

For much of its existence, the aesthetics of residential interior design were primarily used as status and as exemplary for cultural refinement and taste.

For life as it exist on this planet today, such is not the case.

Cell phones, computers, electronic devices, climate changes, awareness of our environments, more understanding of the sciences of life, and many other factors have determined what are, or should be, more desirable goals of professional residential interior designing.

What is considered, or should be, is not just the beauty of our indoor living spaces, but the environments and activities of those people who will be in them.

What direction does it face in relation to the sun? What is the long-term pattern of the weather in the part of the world where it is to be built? How does such affect the natural and man-made lighting at all times for activities in these spaces during all hours and seasons?

What are the personality traits, lifestyles, and likes and dislikes of the people occupying these spaces?

What factors are to be considered for the comfortable and healthy control of heating, cooling, and humidity of this interior space?

What currently available physical materials and building techniques are best for this project?

What are the initial financial expenditures for the building and maintenance, upkeep, et cetera for the thereafter lifetime?

What are the emotional, intellectual, and psychological traits of these spaces and the affects of such on their users?

How does the geological and cultural placement of this structure fit into the jigsaw puzzle that is this world?

How does the chemical composition of natural and man made objects affect the physical health of its users?

How does this undertaking design affect global warming and the improvement and advancement of civilizations and people’s lives?

Smart homes are not some bugbear that is going to take control of our lives, but are a current, and growing, method of making the operations of our homes more efficient, more comfortable, more economic, healthier, and time-saving.

Smart houses also make where one lives a more beautiful life.

Food for thought.

When seeking completeness in designing where you will live, what are the most important questions to ask?

The most important goals you want to have achieved as a finished result are?

Of what do you want the world, anyone who sees where you live, to be aware?

In designing your interior residential spaces, is how what is done fits and expresses you a higher priority than how others may respond?

What is to be the intellectual level exemplified?

What emotional, or other non-physical traits, should be fulfilled?

What physical activities are to take place in these spaces? By whom? And when?

What is your level of acceptability of quality for materials and workmanship?

What is the best manifestation, as one, of both function and aesthetics for expressing your lifestyle?

Are all available options being employed?

What is the doable reality?

What roles in the health and balance of this planet will these results play?

The ideal achievement level accomplished in designing residential interior spaces is determined by the expenditure of resources toward that goal.

Food for thought.

Today, there are myriad choices available, from building new houses to remodeling old houses, that were not around when undertaking the process decades ago.

One should be aware that this process should be approached as living in today’s world and not living in the past.

The capability of computers and cell phones has enhanced the visualization of construction processes which can be seen on them. Such is an aid for designing and comprehension and shouldn’t be expected to produce the same results as Santa Clause or the Easter bunny. Be realistic.

The causes of climate change, energy usage, the affects to the environment, the warming earth atmosphere, the amount made and disposal of trash, et cetera should be considered thoughout this entire process.

Windows, walls, floors, and ceilings that are insulated against heat, cold, sound, and weather conditions are offering more opportunities for natural light, enhanced views, profuse design choices, and higher quality aesthetic options.

The presence of more “interior designers” offering opinions, guidelines, suggestions, rules, and services is becoming apparent. It is advantageous to research for their education, qualifications, experience, talent, business savvy, and results produced before hiring them.

The quality and movement of indoor air for health and comfort needs to be addressed.

The amount, types, sources, and placements of energy used during construction and the lifetime of the structure are important financial and environmental factors for a successful project.

The role, number, desirability, requirement, or necessity for smart house design elements of present and future usages requires consideration.

The abundant choices of materials, colors, finishes, maintenance, off-the-shelf and custom made, et cetera available for materials, paints, and construction methods require attention.

The need for environmentally sound and healthy practices for all spaces and aspects of residential interiors should be fulfilled.

Be alert, be open-minded, and evaluate while choosing wisely and well.

Food for thought.

The effect of artificial intelligence upon our lives has been compared to those changes brought about by computers.

Good news. Artificial intelligence is not going to replace humanity.

Information learned at a recent trade program specifically for interior designers can be applied to other professions.

We are not going to become servants of artificial intelligence that will replace our control of our lives.

Artificial intelligence is like a personal administrative assistant which does not have to be paid, does not get sick, or take vacation time off.

Artificial intelligence can handle first-level routine and repetitive operations.

It can process e-mails, phone calls, text messages, et cetera, evaluate them, and prioritize their information, importance, and timing of responses.

It can take over repetitive tasks, organize, research, and other basic administrative tasks that do not require designer’s input, creativity, imagination, et cetera.

As time passes, uses of artificial intelligence will expand into other and more areas of our lives.

Are we getting to the stage where communication between people is only at the intellectual level as seen in Star Trek and other futuristic civilizations societies?

No one I’ve asked what role artificial intelligence will play in the creating design process will answer.

The results seen in other fields examples can only be kindly described as warped.

The interior designer controls, and is not controlled by, artificial intelligence and does not have to agree with or accept its results.

The raison d’etre of artificial intelligence in the practice of interior design is to free the designer’s time for creative, intelligent, and imaginative uses

The reality of the human race is an evolving and growing expression of the infinite intelligence which manifests as the physics of this universe in which we are.

Artificial intelligence is one stage in this process.

Food for thought.

Coming across my desk are more instances of using biophilic principles for the inside of residential interiors.

According to my research, there are six principles to be used for achieving such.

1 Natural light: Using natural light is desirable for all interior spaces for its physical, emotional, and intellectual results and is not limited to biophilic interiors.

2 Natural materials: Materials used should be the best possible for the desired design results. Choices should be made as such. Is natural the best choice or is it chosen just because it’s natural?

3 Plants and greenery: The use of plants, in healthy and designed places, enhances the ambiance of our connection with nature and beauty.

4 Views of nature: Outside views, especially pleasant ones, affect positively our overall well being in many different ways. Views of nature are generally more desirable.

5 Water features: The use of any water feature for any residential interior should be thoroughly designed for function, maintenance, and aesthetics to completely fit into its environment. It should never just be added.

6 Natural shapes and forms: I have a problem with this one. Shapes and forms should be used for the highest designed results. A tree does not look like a table. Should a table look like a tree? Nature should be used as inspiration for aesthetics and not be duplicated.

Choices made for all designed residential interiors should be based on the laws of physics and the principles of aesthetics to fulfill to the highest level possible the function, aesthetics, and personality traits of those people who will use it.

Choose what fits best for you.

Food for thought.

Over the past many decades, what is now called residential interior design was known as “good taste” in home decoration.

Good taste was the gold standard of the upper socioeconomic class to which the rest of the population should aspire.

Such was an unwritten law.

The emphasis was on formality, etiquette, breeding, past period designs, traditions, and the personal home furnishings and lifestyle choices of those who proclaimed these standards.

These standards were of ultimate importance and determined hierarchy in society.

Based on this rigid expression of desired beauty standards, certain things, or expressions, did not “go together” in good taste. Comfort, personal likes, convenience, and logic were not players on this stage of life.

People not adhering to this standard were considered to be lower class.

Changes, advances, discoveries, sources and types of financial status, incomes, communication, education, politics, entertainment, and the arts brought about a different, advanced, freer, less rigid, logical, and more personal status of life on this planet.

Changes constantly continue in the flow of life.

In many current designed residential interiors, there is an almost total disregard for adherence to aesthetic principles, definitions, and the quality level of beauty.

Today, the qualification for the beauty of these designs is what individuals like, what’s comfortable, and what’s uniquely personal.

The highest levels of quality aesthetics are becoming more dissolved to express individual taste.

Anything goes if one likes it.

While individual personal expressions are good, healthy, and desirable, somewhere along the way, have we not strayed from what took us to the highest quality experience bar of beauty that can be known?

What is beauty, for designed residential interiors, and what is its priority and role in the current drama of life played on this planet?

Food for thought.