Interior Design: 2 Year Diploma
The Academy of Design’s Interior Design program attracts creative and detail-minded individuals with a desire to improve the built environment. Students discover how interiors, designed properly and inventively, can influence human interaction, emotional response and improve the quality of our lives. The curriculum encourages the students to experiment with form, space, texture and colour, drawing on holistic and cultural references, technical expertise, intellectual disciplines, creative sensitivity, and environmental and global awareness.
Course work examines the basics of two and three-dimensional consciousness, the study of human factors in planning interior space, colour theory and psychology, lighting, material knowledge and the impact on the environment, and historical reference. Visual communication skills are developed and perfected to transmit ideas into three-dimensional concepts. Technical drawing and architectural detailing skills begin with manual drafting, leading to AutoCAD competency in the second year. Students apply design theory and conceptual abilities from the development of simple spaces to complex residential, retail, corporate, and hospitality projects intended for diverse social and economic populations throughout the two-year foundation program.
The program consists of six terms divided into twelve-week quarter terms of design-specific course study. Students may complete the program in two years or in eighteen months of continuous study. Graduates from the two-year program are qualified as designers and/or decorators who may practice in the residential or retail areas of design where full knowledge and application of regulatory codes and life safety may require assistance of allied professionals. The program is recognized by CDECA (Canadian Decorators’ Association of Canada).
Graduates of the advanced program after completing the sequence of formal education, experience, and successful completion of the National Council for Interior Design Qualification (NCIDQ) qualifying exam can become Registered Interior Designers by meeting the eligibility requirements for membership in ARIDO (Association of Registered Interior Designers of Ontario), and use the title Interior Designer. Students preparing for entrance into the three-year program are required to complete the liberal arts electives to graduate from the three- year Diploma in Interior Design program.
