Interior Design
In their article, "Interior design education within a human ecological framework," Kaup, Anderson and Honey (2007) argue for an interdisciplinary model of interior design education that would incorporate the study of human ecology. Kaup, Anderson and Honey contend that such an approach would enhance the overall skill set of interior designers, allowing them to provide a greater benefit to businesses, homeowners and communities, while also addressing some of the perceived training gaps in current interior design education. While Kaup, Anderson and Honey (2007) structure their article as an argumentative essay, they rely heavily on a literature-review format to help cement their points. To begin their argument, Kaup, Anderson and Honey define human ecology as the study of "human beings, their environments and human-environment interactions from a holistic perspective (p. 45)." Human ecology incorporates the science of human behavior study with the art of creating functional design to enhance how humans thrive in their environments. In short, the authors argue that students who study human ecology as part of their interior design curriculum will be exposed to such diverse fields as anthropology, archeology, architecture, biology,
As the authors point out, human ecology will allow interior design to become "more than art and technology; it becomes art and technology with a human ecological purpose (p. Those whose training emphasized architecture and science may be considered to have greater technical skill, but perhaps not as much creativity, particularly in the case of those with a science background (p. Kaup, Anderson and Honey do not argue that interior design programs should stop incorporating architecture, art and science -- they simply believe that a thorough study of human ecology will naturally expose students to all of those fields. In fact, the authors contend that interior design study is steadily migrating into the field of human ecology. The advantage of incorporating human ecology study is that it will keep interior design programs at colleges from being aligned solely with academic units such as architecture, art or science. Kaup, Anderson and Honey make a convincing argument that interior designers can better serve businesses, homeowners and their communities by studying human ecology, and the next step will be to show that such programs can be delivered with the type of quality results the authors believe possible. For example, graduates whose programs focused on the arts are considered to have great design skill, but little scientific knowledge (p. Further, programs that feature the study of human ecology but have not sought accreditation must do so, which will allow the debate over this interdisciplinary approach to move forward. In short, the movement among many colleges to realign their programs within their schools of art and science provides a perfect opportunity to discuss where exactly interior design study belongs, according to Kaup, Anderson and Honey (2007). This would be an enhancement over many current programs, which focus mainly on one area of study (such as art) to provide the disciplinary backbone to their interior design programs. Kaup, Anderson and Honey (2007) argue that by incorporating human ecology into interior design study, colleges can overcome some of the perceived knowledge gaps that have been attached to programs focusing on architecture, art or science. Those standards, however, leave colleges a fair degree of latitude in deciding which disciplines to align their programs with.
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Acceptance Essays
