Frank Alvah Parsons established the first academic interior design program in the United States in 1906. Parsons continues to lead this evolving field today with three programs serving a diverse set of educational needs and desires.

The AAS in Interior Design program is a first-professional curriculum for career advancers and changers from a broad spectrum of fields. Students design concepts for the residential, retail, workplace, and hospitality sectors of business, exploring the relationship between social practice theories, the decorative, and the ecology of the interior.

AAS Interior Design program's three core studios and related course work in drawing, environmental design, histories, theories, principles, and elements of interior design engage students in projects that expose them to the complex and rewarding role of an interior designer.

Here listed are the program studio faculty from core ID Studios 1, 2 and 3. In addition, however, program and graduating students recognize and extend the most profound gratitude to all The New School faculty who shaped the learning experiences and influenced the outcomes presented below.

Interior Design Studio 1 introduces students to the fundamentals of interior design--program and concept development, proxemics, lighting, materials, the decorative arts, and more--through a series of small scale design projects that emphasize creativity and inventiveness. Presentations for studio work utilize a variety of analog and digital techniques of representation to communicate design ideas to a viewer or client.

Live/Work/Boutique Retail - Design principles are embedded in the course through readings and discussions throughout the semester with the intention of applying this knowledge to better inform studio projects. There are two main design projects, each of which focuses on specific topics in interior investigations, a live-work space, and a boutique retail space. Students are required to work independently, as well as in groups to develop creative, collaborative thinking and making. The aim of each project is to develop an original approach and produce proposals focused on a strong set of design concepts.

The Future of Civic Space and Work[ing]: A Focus on the City Dweller & Worker + Place + Community

Building on the lessons from the previous semester's work. ID Studio 2 challenges students to consider the role of interior design as interrogators and mediators between public and private space. Projects explore the intersection of interior design, public space and civic duty, and emerging concepts for commercial workspace. What new design opportunities arise from city dwellers having gained greater access to public space? And, what new opportunities for rethinking work[place] arise from the disruption of the pandemic? Student's final outcomes look to the future and anticipates design for a post-pandemic society that reflects real systemic change.

Interior Design Studio 3 assists students in progressively building towards designing a large and complex project in the hospitality industry, focusing on research and strategic design for a sequence of experiences organized around various program requirements.

In this studio, students explore how a hotel-centric hospitality program can act as a cultural catalyst to its surrounding environment. Formal and material aspects of design demonstrate the relationship between public/private, individual/collective, slow/fast temporal, and spatial conditions. Students continue to investigate how spatial organizations, light and material selections, and other human factors, as implemented, influence health, wellbeing, and inclusivity. Finally, interior Design Studio 3 concludes with an innovative hotel concept, with potentially “disruptor” designs for the contemporary city dweller and destination traveler. 

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