About

The IFI Interiors Declaration (IFI ID) is a consensus-based vision / mission statement on the purpose and value of Interior Architecture / Design, which asserts that, by design, Interiors optimally support humanity in all of its functions and activities. The Declaration forms a unanimous agreement that establishes the essential foundations for the Interiors discipline and its advancement worldwide. The ideas contained in the Declaration provide clear goals for Interiors professionals and affect the fundamental understanding and shaping of our practice, its education and research, and the outcomes required of our built environment in support of humanity, society and culture.

The IFI Interiors Declaration was first presented at the Design Frontiers: The Interiors Entity (DFIE) Global Symposium held in February 2011 in New York City (USA). Organized by IFI and co-sponsored by the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution, and supported by the Museum of Arts and Design, the Symposium was attended by over one hundred delegates from thirty countries, among them some of the world’s leading design authorities, innovators, business leaders and strategic thinkers. This momentous gathering culminated in the signing of the formal IFI Interiors Declaration (IFI ID), a first in the history of the Interiors’ profession.

Since then, 127 cities and nations all over the world have adopted the IFI Interiors Declaration, demonstrating their commitment to furthering Interior Architecture / Design and improving the life-quality of their communities by promoting Interiors that facilitate and nurture all human activities.

For any questions on how to adopt the IFI Interiors Declaration in your city or country, please contact the IFI Secretariat at programs@ifiworld.org.

IFI Interiors Declaration

The Interiors Declaration forms a unified basis of understanding of the core tenets of Interior Architecture/Design.

It is the nature of Humankind not only to use spaces, but to fill them with beauty and meaning.

Skillfully designed spaces can arouse in us a sense of purpose, or a sense of the profound.

In the spaces that are important to us, we experience not only a sense of place, but a sense of who we are, and of what we can be.

Thoughtfully designed spaces help us learn, reflect, imagine, discover and create.

Great spaces are indispensable for great creative cultures. They encourage connections between people, ideas and entire fields of thought.

As design professionals, our knowledge enables us to form spaces that respond to human needs. These human spaces are the domain of our competence, our passion and our work.

We use space responsibly. We practice our profession with highest regard for engaging the world’s economic and natural resources in a sustainable manner. We design for health, safety, well-being and the needs of all.

It is, after all, for Humanity, our ultimate client, that we design. We shape the spaces that shape the human experience.

This is what we do, what we create, what we give. It is how we earn our place at the human table. It is why our work is important to our clients, to our societies and to ourselves. It is the difference we make and why we choose this noble profession.

VALUE

The profession provides leadership and utilizes an iterative and interactive process that includes discovery, translation and validation, producing measurable outcomes and improvements in interior spaces and in the lives of the people who use them.

This process delivers economic, functional, aesthetic and social advantage that helps clients understand the value of their decisions and enables better decisions that are beneficial to users and to society.

It is recommended that the profession become a trusted voice and develop multiple research models in the context of physical, emotional and behavioural patterns of users.

RELEVANCE

The profession defines projects at their commencement, and champions human experience at all levels.

Interior designers and interior architects synthesize human and environmental ecologies and translate science to beauty addressing all the senses.

The practitioner listens, observes, analyzes, improves and creates original ideas, visions and spaces that have measurable value.

RESPONSIBILITY

The responsibility of interior designers and interior architects is to define the practice and the required expertise, educate ourselves and the public, and to position ourselves in the public realm as experts in the built environment.

The responsibility of interior designers and interior architects is to advance the profession and advocate for social well-being.

CULTURE

As a creative enterprise, interior design and interior architecture are a mode of cultural production. They are a place-maker that interprets, translates, and edits cultural capital.

In a global world, interior design and interior architecture must play a role in facilitating the retention of cultural diversity.

BUSINESS

The profession of interior design and interior architecture provides value to the stakeholders.

It improves well-being as a factor of economic development.

It provides strategic thought leadership resulting in multifaceted return on investment.

Interior designers and interior architects advocate education for the ongoing benefit and awareness of the profession.

KNOWLEDGE

Theoretical, applied, and innate knowledge are fundamental to the practice of interior design and interior architecture.

The confluence of environmental psychology and the science of anthropometrics are critical to the quantitative and qualitative knowledge that form the practice of interior design and interior architecture.

IDENTITY

Interior designers and interior architects determine the relationship of people to spaces based on psychological and physical parameters, to improve the quality of life.