Human-Centered Design speaks to the critical role interior spaces play in the well being of people in the made environment. Specific conference tracks joining design scholars, educators, and creators aim to coalesce a body of work significant in size and focus and to facilitate collaboration amongst these design thinkers.

IDEC’s Annual Conference hosts 300-400 members, educators, practitioners, and graduate students. A gathering of Interior Design Educators at every stage of their careers, the Annual Conference provides opportunities for dissemination of research related to the areas of design, teaching and learning, as well as creative scholarship.

This year’s conference is an opportunity for interior design educators, students and stakeholders to reconnect, share scholarship, learn about new teaching practices, forge industry partnerships, and explore opportunities for collaboration.

Abstracts explores the interior design discipline’s theoretical, historical, or practical aspects in practice and education. Scholarship of Design Research abstracts should identify the question or theory being explored, the framework of exploration, and conclusions drawn from the examination. The Scholarship presented is expected to have reached preliminary conclusions and implications that can be shared with the audience. Note that Undergraduate work is restricted from submitting under this category.

Cultivation of emerging leaders is crucial to the future success of interior design programs currently experiencing a wave of retirements as well as career shifts of existing leadership. This workshop is open to all current, aspiring, emerging and future leaders, however the focus of the program is preparing emerging leaders for their roles in program management.

The Interior Design Educators Council (IDEC) invites educators and practitioners from around the globe to submit abstracts that explore and celebrate all facets of interior design, its teaching, and scholarship, including history, theory, practice, pedagogy, interdisciplinary collaboration, as well as diversity, equity & inclusion, social & environmental stewardship, or other topic/s of current and/or continuing relevance.