Interior Design Definitions

Aging in Place: provides the ability for individuals to remain in one's home safely, independently, and comfortably, regardless of age, income, or ability level. It means the pleasure of living in a familiar environment throughout one's maturing years, and the ability to enjoy the familiar daily rituals and the special events that enrich all our lives. It means the reassurance of being able to call a house a "home" for a lifetime.

Elements of Design are the concrete, quantifiable components of any design. They embody the principles of design and transform theory into reality.

Green design (also referred to as "sustainable design", "eco-design", or "design for environment"): a growing trend within the fields of architecture, landscape architecture, engineering, industrial design and interior design. The essential aim is to produce places, products and services in a way that reduces use of non-renewable resources, minimizes environmental impact, and relates people with the natural environment. Green design is often viewed as a necessary tool for achieving sustainability. It is related to the more heavy-industry-focused fields of industrial ecology and green chemistry, sharing tools such as life cycle assessment and life cycle energy analysis to judge the environmental impact or "greenness" of various design choices.

Green design is a reaction to the global "environmental crisis", i.e., rapid growth of economic activity and human population, depletion of natural resources, damage to ecosystems and loss of biodiversity [1]. Proponents of green design believe that the crisis is in large part caused by conventional design and industrial practices, which disregard the risks and environmental impacts associated with goods and services. Green design is considered a means of reducing or eliminating these impacts while maintaining quality of life by using careful assessment and clever design to substitute less harmful products and processes for conventional ones. The motivation for green design was articulated famously in E. F. Schumacher's 1973 book Small is Beautiful.

Principles of Design are the abstract concepts that constitute the theory, bylaws, or governing ideas that determine the success of a design.

Universal design: an approach to the design of all products and environments to be usable by everyone, to the greatest extent possible, regardless of age, ability, or situation. It serves people who are young or old, with excellent or limited abilities, in ideal or difficult circumstances. Universal design benefits everyone by accommodating limitations.