Also working from a “time-layered” perspective, Brand proposes a holistic approach to time-sensitive design. He identifies six components of buildings: site, structure, skin, services, and space plan. While interior designers are focused on the last two, they have good reason to want to influence the rest: they all affect the building’s use through time. To exercise this influence effectively, of course, interior designers have to understand the characteristics of these components, and the possibilities of the other elements of the built environment. Interior designers do not have to be engineers, orvice versa, but both need to know enough about the others’ business so they can approach the building in a holistic or time-layered way.
To be responsive to the user in the building design process, interior designers need to have this broader knowledge of the building and its components.In the end, their ability to sway others in the design and delivery process will rest primarily on issues of use over time—issues that are primarily functional and strategic, and that constantly require new skills.
However, interior designers can make a strong case that they should be accorded the distinctions and protections that are part of other design professions such as architecture. No less than architects, interior designers are engaged in “the entire design problem.” As advocates of the user, and as designers who are “fourth-dimension sensitive,” they are often the first ones in the building design process to point out how one or another of the building’s components makes it harder for its settings to evolve easily to meet new needs. As designers’ interest in indoor air quality demonstrates, they are concerned with quality of life, too—with user performance, not just building performance.
