Interior Design

In this year long course (ID studio 1 and 2), students explore and test conceptual thinking, design process and design tools required to develop proposals for inhabited spaces. Students are encouraged and expected to challenge themselves by investigating new ways of thinking and designing. In this second semester, a final brief will require students to push their designs further in terms of detail, materiality, structure and assembly. Using either the school’s 3D workshop or printing facilities, or affiliated fab lab resources, students will fabricate and assemble a large scale model or prototype of an extract of their proposal as a means to test and implement their design first-hand.

This course is meant to enable students to develop and perfect the required practical skills to describe and represent space. It is dedicated principally to 2D technical drawing (measures, plan, section, views, axonometric projections, detail and construction drawings) using CAD software programs Adobe Creative Suites, AutoCAD and SketchUP, as needed for most projects. Students will also be given the opportunity to explore 3D visualization techniques and rendering tools so as to perfect their project communication skills. PCA has a license for all its students, faculty and staff to use lynda.com, an online tutorial for all software programs required for art and design.

In this year long course, a practical approach is applied to each phase of the interior design project, from inception to completion. Working through the 4 principal stages of a scheme (feasibility and analysis; sketch proposal; detailed design; construction phase) students are led to identify, in sequence, the specific objectives, challenges and communication requirements relating to each phase. In the first semester, using the team project as an application, students consider the professional feasibility of an idea and the implications behind a sketch proposal: estimation of timeframes of each part within the whole project, measurements, budget comparisons, contract and constructions costs, clarity and coherence of a scheme with respects to client requirements and programmatic constraints. In the second semester, students follow the elaboration and perfecting of a project through the detailed design process, as well as the rigour and attention required to carry a project through to completion, addressing construction team management skills and professional ethics. Throughout the duration of the course and following each phase of the design process students are encouraged to apply the technical proficiency they have acquired in the fall CAD course to develop and explore new concepts, methods and ideas to illustrate and present each stage: concept boards, fast scale models, graphics, material samples and mock-ups. Oral presentation skills to accompany their visual communication are the focus of continuous feedback for improvement.

In the first semester, students work in teams on either a residential or a commercial space. They select an existing space in Paris and build the project on a proposed transformation of this space. This is a two-credit course because the majority of the work is done by students outside direct classroom instruction time. Students work in teams and meet with their instructor for 2 hours per week to review progress, receive feedback and technical conceptual suggestions for moving the project to completion. A peer review and critique with all student teams is organized at the end of weeks 5, 10, and 15. For the final critique after week 15 several faculty and at least one outside professional are also part of the jury that sets the grade.

The course will analyze and compare 20th and 21st century architectures and interiors in Japan, Scandinavia, North America, South America, and the Mediterranean. Students will work towards situating design and architecture practices within larger intellectual and historical frameworks by exploring the indissoluble connections linking ideas and products of human culture. Students will acquire the critical methodologies applicable to design and architecture to think more systematically about the evolution of architecture and interiors over time.

The course provides introductory-to-advanced-level research and methodology instruction, covering topics from art and design theory to the use of technology. This course focuses in depth on various research methods currently used to inform the design process. It builds on knowledge and skills acquired in the first semester to introduce students to specific research methods for designers and artists. The course will cover research in physical human factors; human cognitive factors; cultural human factors; and ethnographic fieldwork. Students will learn how to apply these methods to the design process through hands-on projects requiring a multidisciplinary approach.

In this section, students will be introduced to the basic tenets of research in order to support their reasoning with respect to the design process. Foremost, they will learn to formulate a design research problematic; engage in data gathering and analysis; differentiate between primary and secondary research sources; carry out quantitative and qualitative research.

In this year long course (ID studio 1 and 2), students explore and test conceptual thinking, design process and design tools required to develop proposals for inhabited spaces. Students are encouraged and expected to challenge themselves by investigating new ways of thinking and designing. In this second semester, a final brief will require students to push their designs further in terms of detail, materiality, structure and assembly. Using either the school’s 3D workshop or printing facilities, or affiliated fab lab resources, students will fabricate and assemble a large scale model or prototype of an extract of their proposal as a means to test and implement their design first-hand.

In this year long course, a practical approach is applied to each phase of the interior design project, from inception to completion. Working through the 4 principal stages of a scheme (feasibility and analysis; sketch proposal; detailed design; construction phase) students are led to identify, in sequence, the specific objectives, challenges and communication requirements relating to each phase. In the first semester, using the team project as an application, students consider the professional feasibility of an idea and the implications behind a sketch proposal: estimation of timeframes of each part within the whole project, measurements, budget comparisons, contract and constructions costs, clarity and coherence of a scheme with respects to client requirements and programmatic constraints. In the second semester, students follow the elaboration and perfecting of a project through the detailed design process, as well as the rigour and attention required to carry a project through to completion, addressing construction team management skills and professional ethics. Throughout the duration of the course and following each phase of the design process students are encouraged to apply the technical proficiency they have acquired in the fall CAD course to develop and explore new concepts, methods and ideas to illustrate and present each stage: concept boards, fast scale models, graphics, material samples and mock-ups. Oral presentation skills to accompany their visual communication are the focus of continuous feedback for improvement.

A semester-long project will be conducted individually to give students the opportunity to apply all the interdisciplinary skills and knowledge gathered during the first semester to either a residential or a commercial space. The project will be accompanied by a written thesis summarizing the research (historical, social, contextual and technical) in which the project is grounded and comprising a budget and timeline. This is a two-credit course because the majority of the work is done by students outside direct classroom instruction time. Students meet with their instructor for 2 hours per week to review progress, receive feedback and technical and conceptual suggestions for moving the project to completion. A peer review and critique with all student teams is organized at the end of weeks 5, 10, and 15. For the final critique after week 15 several faculty and outside professionals are also part of the jury that sets the grade.

Professionals from the Parisian art and design world will come in to introduce students to their professional practice and engage them in practical exercises preparing them for the job market. Instructors will be drawn from a broad range of fields: photographers and videographers; designer and architects; galleries, museums, auction houses and private collections; art fairs and international exhibitions; art dealers; curators; historians; journalists and iconographers; artists; magazine editors; I.P. and licensing lawyers, etc. This class brings together students from all the graduate programs.

Students will document the research they conduct on the theme of their final project, as well as the research they have done on the cost and means of production of their project. One of the criteria for evaluating the thesis is the extent to which the student’s work is situated in an art-historic and cultural context, requiring students to conduct research using written documentation, artefacts, and the learning resources available to them in Paris (see section devoted to libraries and other learning resources).

You may select electives from the course offerings below.