Materials

An important part of interior design work is the selection of appropriate or suitable materials for the elements that make up a particular interior space. In order to select materials for floors, walls, windows and furnishings, the designer begins with an evaluation of the elements of architecture. (If you are fortunate enough to be involved in a project from the inception, you may be able to influence architectural decisions rather than responding to them.) Every building is made up of both structural and nonstructural elements. The basic architecture of the building may have some or most of the structural elements exposed, or, the structure may be totally invisible, hidden within partition walls, hung ceilings and other finishing materials.

Architects often consider the exposed infrastructure of a building to be beautiful as well as functional, so they use the structural supports as part of the visual beauty of the building. For examples, see page 251, figure 9.8 of your text and page 257, figure 9.21. Modern architecture is more likely to leave some of the structural elements exposed than more traditional architecture. However, the ionic marble columns in the New York Bar Association library (figure 9.23, page 258) are an example of an exposed element in a more traditional architecture.

When selecting materials for interiors always begin by evaluating the architectural setting in which they will be placed. To ignore this is to create something that looks absurd.