About the Interior Design Field

The Interior Designer and Their Qualifications

Interior Design is one of the education areas of the College of Humanities and Educational Sciences, to which a department at the College of Designs and Arts at Umm Al-Qura University is dedicated. The field is concerned with the planning and development of the interior spaces of the facilities, whether residential, administrative, commercial, touristic, or media facilities and others.. The work of an interior designer is promoted by his desire to create a specific environment, within which the targeted people can meet their requirements and needs. This means that interior design is not limited to the internal arrangement of a place or organization and distribution of furniture; it also includes developing a full design plan covering all the artistic components based upon cross-cutting sciences, including: the human, engineering, artistic, architectural, and technological aspects.

The program targets the graduates of the Interior Design Department who have outstanding talents in drawing or design and a passion for the interior design field. It offers diverse academic courses to include the study of both aesthetic theories and functional theories, covering the history, models, and theories of architecture and interior design, their trends, the artistic schools affected by them, engineering drawing, computer design, the use of materials, colors, and lighting in interior design and the furniture industry. In addition, the courses also address the impact of human behaviors on the environment and the impact of the surrounding environment on interior and furniture design.

Students receive a bachelor's degree in interior design after completing 130 credit hours during the four-year period of study.

The Department of Interior Design also provides consultation and design services to all the bodies and departments of Umm Al-Qura University under the supervision of the faculty members, as a service to the community. It also participates in the cultural, scientific, and environmental activities such as organizing conferences and exhibitions and designing public squares in the cities of Saudi Arabia.

The UQU Pavilion at the International Exhibition and Conference on Higher Education was designed by the department.

Vision:

The program aims to graduate distinguished national professionals in the fields of interior and furniture design, equipped with high academic qualifications to assume training and leadership positions to enrich the labor market and create innovative design solutions locally and regionally.

Mission:

The mission of the program is to qualify skilled interior designers capable of coping with innovation and technology in the field of interior design, provide a rich scientific, practical, and research environment, and upgrade the visual communication culture in the local and regional society to realize Saudi Vision 2030.

Objectives of the Interior Design Program:

1. Preparing highly qualified national graduates and professional designers, proud of their Saudi identity, and graduated from the distinguished Umm Al-Qura University in the fields of interior and furniture design after a four-year bachelor program, targeting more than fifty students for each batch.
2. Providing a motivating educational environment equipped with advanced laboratories for hand and digital drawing, construction, printing, and cutting design in both the male and female sections.
3. Qualifying students through 20 specialized theoretical courses on the history, theories, environment, and technology of interior design and furniture industry.
4. Developing the abilities and skills of students through 20 specialized practical courses on hand and digital drawing and design, including 5 "Studio Interior Design" courses to work on residential, commercial, administrative, tourism, and media projects.
5. Training the students on creating innovative solutions to the design-related problems through scientific research, familiarizing themselves with the community, and venturing into the labor market during the last two years of the bachelor's program and then the postgraduate studies for an additional four years from the program start date.
6. Diversifying the competencies of the faculty members, and creating an effective academic environment promoting synergies by linking the diverse courses and projects during each level separately to ensure the students' quality of production.
7. Applying the quality and academic development standards of the interior design program to obtain academic accreditation within five years from the program start date.
8. Shaping the personality of highly qualified designers, who are able to venture into the labor market through providing apt courses that teach the students professional ethics and preparation of important files and documents, encouraging each student to participate in activities and events at least once a year.

Interior Design and Labor Market:

Interior design is an important specialty for Saudi society, given the fact that it is currently and increasingly required by the Saudi labor market in light of the remarkable development observed through residential, tourism, commercial, administrative, and other facilities in general and the ongoing expansion of the Holy Mosque in Makkah and the surrounding areas in particular. The department works to qualify its students to achieve Saudi Vision 2030, which has developed a special program for the human capacity development aiming to improve the outputs of the education and training system, keep abreast of the latest developments, and adapt them to meet the needs of the development process and the accelerated and renewed requirements of the local and global labor markets as well as the requirements of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, in partnership between all stakeholders locally and internationally.

Through the program's diverse courses, students work on mock and actual projects, write worksheets, conduct research, and participate in exhibitions, activities, and field visits to familiarize themselves with the Saudi community and understand the labor market from the first to the eighth level, in which they carry out the graduation project. Thus, the students become qualified to work in different bodies with various experiences, including:

1. Government and private engineering and consulting offices specialized in architecture and interior design.
2. Various governmental bodies such as the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Industry, and the Ministry of Housing.
3. Industrial and commercial institutions specialized in designing, manufacturing, and selling furniture.
4. Educational departments related to vocational training.
5. Furniture production and interior design companies.
6. Tourism companies and the Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage (SCTH).