If you walk through the Spanish cities you can see how interior design has been installed in the streets. Studio storefronts that offer these services abound. The boom in decoration can also be seen in renovation companies, developers and even real estate agencies. Many offer their clients the possibility of modeling the houses to their liking, either with their own or subcontracted designers. And it is that interior design has been democratized, it is no longer only a service used by the rich in their mansions, but “it is available to all types of clients”, says Teresa Casas, president of the General Council of Official Associations of Decorators and Interior Designers.
And this boom is noticeable in the schools that teach decoration and interior design, which have also hit a huge growth spurt since architects and quantity surveyors lost their jobs with the crash real estate and look for outlets in this discipline. And especially since the television series of express reforms encouraged many people to discover the profession and want to practice it. It’s also given way to a number of new, related professions that fill the gaps not provided by interior designers – things like art curation and professional picture hanging services. The emergence of the coronavirus and the verification of the shortcomings of homes during confinement has given another boost to the interest to teach or learn interior design. either as hobby or as a profession. And, of course, he has triggered home renovations and renovations.
Casas points out that “there are more and more graduates. We have about 600 or 700 young graduates a year”, who come from the 40 schools that teach the higher degree of interior design in Spain. The official title. But they represent a part of the market, to which all kinds of private centers have been added to reach professionals and amateurs who want to imbue themselves with knowledge. Many of them have emerged under the cover of decoration and design magazines.
The deputy director of the Higher School of Design of Madrid, José Miguel Celestino, believes that the European Agenda 20/30, in which sustainability and digitization are the key and interior design the support for the rehabilitation of spaces that will go hand in hand, is Another reason for the increased interest of the students. At his school, they grow at rates of 15% per year. And in the case of postgraduate courses, which were implemented 5 years ago and whose cost is around 1,700 euros, “we have five requests for each available place, especially in interactive design and commercial spaces,” he explains. At the European Institute of Design (IED) they see great demand for the latest master’s degree they have launched in creative store design, which lasts 10 months and costs 12,000 euros, because commercial spaces are also being transformed with the boost of sales on-line. Or restaurants and entertainment venues, which are other regular clients of interior designers, as they require a plus of design to be successful.
Internet training is precisely one of the mainstays of the increase in interior design training. This is how the founder of the Madrid School of Decoration, Raquel Simón, sees it, whose center “offers an alternative for those who do not want to spend four years at university, a practical method in the style of the United States and focused on time”. With the pandemic, his courses went online, thanks to which Simón assures that they have achieved great success, doubling their workforce and their turnover (which he does not detail) due to the enormous demand: “We have quintupled the number of students, we already have more than 1,000 students on our platform”, he adds. The Master’s Degree in Decoration and Interior Design + 3D, a European University degree, costs 5,590 euros in its face-to-face format and 4,295 euros in the on-line.
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His students are not youngsters in their twenties, but rather 30-year-olds and up. They are women, 95%, many architects like Lydia García Recuero, 32, who worked for two in an architecture studio. “But I didn’t finish filling up because you didn’t go inside the houses”. To achieve this, she became self-employed within a reform company, although she lacked training, she admits, and studied an intensive course in interior design, after which she was hired by a studio where she is much happier: “I’ll stay with this profession . I love it”, says the Eleroom62 professional.
But most of the students at the Madrid School of Decoration are people who are looking for a professional retraining and see their way out in these four and twelve-month intensive courses, explains Simón. And confirms Iris Piñal, 39 years old. She worked as an administrator in the family locksmith that she set up together with her husband, but during the pandemic she decided that she should find her own path and work on what she liked: decoration. She did the master’s degree and has set up together with a colleague Fabuloso Estudio, which has been operating in Madrid for less than a year. “We haven’t stopped since we started. Right now we have three works underway”, he assures.
Both profiles are also the most abundant in the interior design programs of Elle Education, the school of the Hearst publishing group, owner of Elle magazine. Especially in its master’s degrees approved by the Complutense University, which last one year and can be taken blended or online at prices of 6,000 and 4,900 euros, respectively, and from which professionals have emerged who have created their own studio after reconverting as José Lara, explains Catarina Pais, director of the center’s interior programs. In the other formations (diplomas and courses, shorter and 100% online) there are more students who want to enter decoration as a hobby or plan to model the reform of their house, adds Pais, who indicates that since the pandemic this discipline has given a tremendous jump. Elle Education has launched the online master’s degree in English.
intrusiveness
The president of the General Council of Official Associations of Decorators and Interior Designers maintains that in the heat of the interior design boom, “in this titled, regulated and collegiate profession there is a lot of unfair competition and a lot of intrusiveness from people who, with minimal studies, who do not they are interior designers, offer their services or open their own offices”. “It is not the same to do a career than a course. Legally they do not have the same validity. In addition, if a bad practice occurs and the professional is not registered, the individual cannot go to the school to report it”, warns Teresa Casas, who recalls the need for interior designers to have civil liability insurance for mishaps that could happen during the works.
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