The COVID pandemic gave an impetus to interior designing as more people wanted to design different spaces at home, said Sarosh H. Wadia, the national president of The Institute of Indian Interior Designers (IIID).
Usually, women at home do the interior design at home. During the pandemic, when the entire family spent time indoors, they wanted to design spaces for work, children’s study area, etc. Hence, they started approaching interior designers.
The IIID now plans to have self-governing norms so the public will know what to expect from the interior designers.
The institute’s membership is growing at 20% annually and it has different kinds of memberships. It is also working with educational institutions and before COVID, about 60 colleges were using the syllabus prepared by the institute. It was reaching out to the institutes and reviving this programme. It will also relaunch this year the national awards give away to interior designers, Mr. Wadia said.
“We get about 2,000 entries annually. This year, we are giving away awards under seven categories and there will be one category for overseas designers too. This is to enable our designers also to apply for international awards,” he said.
The IIID is also working with Asia Pacific Space Designers Association (APSDA) so that designers who have minimum five years associate membership with the IIID can be part of the APSDA.
The individual chapters of IIID host “Showcase”, which is an event for international and domestic manufacturers to display their new products to the designers before the commercial launch. This year, the plan is to have this in seven cities and take it to smaller cities too, he said.
