Drawing as manual drafting in the interior design industry: A work-based study

Drawing as manual drafting in the interior design industry: A work-based study

Since the rise of computer-aided design (CAD) software in the past 20 years, there has been a noticeable decline in student manual drafting abilities. The pervasive use and value of CAD applications are not questioned in this research project because they are the norm in interior design and their contributions have been significant. However, due to the impact of digitalisation on modern interior design education, graduates and students of interior design have shown a limited capacity for producing simple floor plans, elevations, sections, and perspectives by hand.

It can therefore be argued there is a disconnect between professional practice and whether there is value in manual drawing in graduate education. By presenting the opinions of ten professional experts in interior design, this work-based research project explores whether the use of drawing as a manual drafting skill in professional practice is important. The study additionally looks at how experienced interior designers recognise their skills and question the value of drawing as a manual drafting technique.

To generate qualitative data, a series of semi-structured interviews were conducted. The findings from these interviews suggest, that interior designers still rely heavily on manual drafting and drawing as a component of their process for client briefs, concept generation, and communication. Despite ongoing digitalisation, this knowledge will assist students and newly graduated interior designers to use manual drafting to become better communicators, idea generators, and thus ultimately better designers.

The existing literature on this subject suggests that educators need to be aware of opportunities to create new techniques to enhance the delivery of manual drafting skills in tertiary education.

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