The Interior Design Program provides four years of full-time study (September - April), to students wishing to pursue a professional career related to built environments.

The Program is accredited by the council for Interior Design Accreditation (formerly FIDER - the Foundation for Interior Design Education Research) at the first professional degree level. The council for Interior Design Accreditation is an international agency whose mission is to "lead the interior design profession to excellence by setting standards and accrediting academic programs."

The program works closely with the professional design community and responds to the needs and advice of that community through the following aims:

Definition of Interior Design
Our program supports this definition (below) of interior design established by official interior design accrediting bodies:

Interior design includes a scope of services performed by a professional design practitioner, qualified by means of education, experience and examination, to protect and enhance the life, health, safety and welfare of the public. These services may include any or all of the following tasks:

Graduates have the potential to work in commercial, residential, and architectural firms as designers where they may gain experience to work toward registration as professionals. With suitable experience, graduates may eventually develop their own firms. Other work is available in wholesale resource firms, with manufacturers’ agents, or in other design-related fields.

Many applicants are mature students who are making a career change while others are recent high school graduates. The most suitable candidates are those who have an awareness of three-dimensional design application and who are familiar with interior design as a professional practice (i.e. have done research about Interior Design). Accepted students will have high levels of social skill, such as teamwork and communication. They will have attended an information session at Kwantlen University College and will have demonstrated a clear enthusiasm for study in this field. Interior Design is a demanding profession and we work hard to simulate that environment in the classroom. By placing high expectations on the students in regard to the quantity and quality of assignments, we hope to prepare them for the challenges of the design profession. To be successful in the Interior Design Program, students must be committed to developing working skills and knowledge through self-motivated hard work. Interior designers often work under pressure to meet deadlines; students will find that multitasking and organizational skills are vital for keeping up with class work. Students need to be prepared to spend at least as much time (if not more) outside class as time spent in class.

A Language Proficiency Index (LPI) essay score of 30 (level 5) must be submitted with your application (current grade 12 students must submit their LPI results on or before March 31). Students transferring from other applied design programs, and/ or other institutions, must also comply with LPI requirements and submit results to the Admissions office.

Applicants are encouraged to apply as early as possible because admission is based on date of application once the applicants have met the entrance requirements.

Applicants should visit www.kwantlen.ca or www.kwantlen.ca/applied-design for detailed information about Interior Design, in addition to available calendar information. The information on these websites will assist applicants in their preparation.

The interior design program simulates a professional design environment. This “virtual design studio” offers integrated courses and curriculum, and emphasizes learning outcomes and employability skills throughout. These include: leadership skills, entrepreneurial skills, problem solving and creative thinking skills, teamwork, personal management, writing/oral/visual and interpersonal skills, reading and research skills, visual literacy, mathematical and technological skills, citizenship, and an ability to view issues through a global perspective.

The interior design curriculum is organized into streams, which are integrated both horizontally within each year and vertically over the four years of the program. Although the program is comprised of individual courses, the effect is more aptly described as a studio project, supported and surrounded by the necessary theory, practical experience and skills development.

The following are streams into which all courses are organized:

This component of the degree entails the following learning outcomes:

Applicants who have completed courses or hold a bachelor and / or masters degree from a recognized post-secondary institution and wish to use those courses to satisfy the Liberal Education requirements, must submit a sealed official transcript and a Request for Transfer Credit form (available at all Admissions offices) to ensure that the transcript is evaluated.

All work submitted for course requirements in the Interior Design program automatically becomes the property of the Interior Design Department and may be retained for exhibition or other purposes at any time and for an indefinite period. The Interior Design Department undertakes to exercise reasonable care of any work so retained and to return it to the author when it is no longer required. Students are encouraged to record their work in various digital or other formats as it is created for portfolio purposes.

Upon successful completion of this program, students are awarded a Bachelor of Applied Design in Interior Design. This Bachelor degree, followed by two cumulative years of work experience in the profession, qualifies graduates to write the National Council for Interior Design Qualification (NCIDQ) examination. This in turn, allows professional membership in the Interior Designers’ Institute of British Columbia (IDIBC), the Interior Designers of Canada (IDC), and International Interior Design Association (IIDA).