Interior Design

Undergraduate Courses - Florence

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The Interior Designer applies design skills to a variety of fields: staring from the domestic setting, these ultimately take in private and community residential spaces, public spaces (airports, ports and stations), public service venues (banks, post offices, hospitals, schools, museum interiors and installations), commercial and hospitality venues (shops, bars and hotels) and lastly open spaces (squares, courtyards and playgrounds).

Title – The First Level Academic Diploma is recognized by MIUR (Ministry for Education, University and Research) and equated with the Bachelor’s Degree issued by Universities.

  • Credits
    180
  • Start date
    October 2021
  • Duration
    3 years
  • Attendance
    full-time
  • Language
    Italian

Get an insight into the creative professions: Interior Designer

Interior Design is an articulated system in which the process of designing spaces interacts with those of designing lighting, materials, colours and furnishings.

Every Interior Designer has to come to terms with the topics of designing hospitality, wellness and commercial interiors, of designing lighting and of designing furnishings, all sectors that derive major impulses from changing human behavioural patterns and environmental issues.

During the first year, students acquire familiarity with the tools they need to perceive object’s morphology and generate a design: the preliminary phase on paper, a check by computer and then the 3D check, using a mock-up. This is also when they learn about the historical context behind design work, how to take a cross-disciplinary approach to the fields of art, fashion, communication, design and architecture. In the area of technology, they come into contact with both natural and artificial materials, with development processes and with the perception of materials’ surfaces.

The second year is devoted to developing on the instrumental, cultural and technical themes first studied in the first year. At this stage, students are also introduced to further fields of investigation and knowledge, so as to extend and complete their individual skills. They now apply the methods they have learned to creating design projects for areas related to industrial products and to systems of spaces and services, in both private and social contexts, conducting creative experiments in all the fields where designers work.

In the third year, students tackle increasingly complex cultural topics and learn how to use the latest tools for elaborating and communicating their projects. The actual design work now occupies the lion’s share of their studies, as they learn to manage the development of a project completely independently. Students are now stimulated to learn how to work independently, make coherent, well-reasoned decisions, relate to their clients and bear the weight of clear responsibilities.

Professional profiles: Interior Designer, Retail Designer, Service Designer, Exhibit Designer, Set Designer, Designer for Hospitality.

Remarkable is that teacher who accomplishes himself what he teaches to others.
(Italian proverb)

IED faculty are professionals that daily face the market. Here you can read their bios.

Cecilia Chiarantini - Course Coordinator

Cecilia Chiarantini - Course Coordinator
She worked for the Designer Guido Venturini, developing projects for Alessi and UnoAErre. In recent years, she has been dedicating her work to sustainability in design and to a creative research of less, awareness and ecological behaviours. Therefore, she founded an experimental workshop aimed at desining sustainable housewares, jewellery, exhibitions and spaces.

Massimiliano Arnone

Massimiliano Arnone
Architect and Designer. He graduated in Florence and later attended a Master in Urban Space Project in Pisa. He has collaborated on numerous international projects with various Florentine architecture firms, focusing mainly on interior design. He has always cultivated a passion for design, dealing with a research laboratory and experimentation with innovative materials for the realization of furniture items.

Marco Innocenti

Marco Innocenti
Owner and Founder of Kidstudio. Designer, Illustrator, Art Director and Photographer with experiences in copy, typography and text editing. Expert in magazine design and publishing, he is involved in cultural and tourist promotion.

Bettina Gelli

Bettina Gelli
Architect. Graduated in Florence with Piero Paoli with a thesis on the recovery of the Stazione Leopolda. Since 1996 she has been working as a freelancer, mainly dealing with restoration and interior design. She has curated numerous interior projects, in Italy and abroad, and has collaborated with numerous architectural firms.

Valentina Gensini

Valentina Gensini
Art historian and curator. Since 2005 she has been focusing her work on Museum Studies with an appointment at the Florentine Superintendency in the Galleria d’Arte Moderna of Palazzo Pitti. Since 2007 she has served as a consultant for the Palazzo Strozzi Foundation in Florence, where she curated the international project Green Platform. Art Ecology Sustainability in 2009. In 2010, she was member of the Cultural Commission for selecting projects for the Estate Fiorentina festival organized by the City of Florence. In 2011, she was the Artistic Director of the Notte Bianca in Florence, entirely dedicated to the contemporary arts. She curated the section of Visual Arts for the Fabbrica Europa Festival in 2012. She is currently Scientific Director of the Museo Novecento, and the Artistic Director of Le Murate: Progetti Arte Contemporanea, a civic center for the contemporary arts.

Antonio Marsala

Antonio Marsala
Antonino Marsala is the team leader of the group Mandarino Blu Visual Communication Lab based in Florence, Italy. He discovered computer graphics when he was 15 at which time he started his path in 3D graphics. After years of personal studies he received his status of Authorized Rhinoceros Trainer (ART) from McNeel.

Francesca Pazzagli

Francesca Pazzagli
Set-Designer. Since 2011 she is Co-Founder of Personal Archive, a studio that deals with set-design projects, communication and production of events in the field of fashion, design and contemporary art. Graduated in Architecture and specialized in Urban Sociology and Territorial Marketing.

Leonardo Rossano

Leonardo Rossano
Architect and Designer of furniture, products and exhibition spaces. It's inspired by nature and technology.

Angelo Ruocco

Angelo Ruocco
Architect and Ph.D. in Architecture Design. He has been teaching for over 20 years in institutions at regional level in the IT field for design. In 2003 he founded the Bifora architecture studio, with whom he works in Italy and abroad with other firms in the design field. He is currently a member of the Culture Commission of the Order of Architects of Livorno.

Francesca Sorgato

Francesca Sorgato
Professor of Interior Design and Fashion Theory. Graduated in Architecture, she collaborated for some years with the Arabeschi di Latte collective in the production of events and installations. In 2009 she moved to London where she began teaching and obtained the Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice at Manchester Metropolitan University. She carries on the research also deepening the sociological and semiological aspects related to creativity.

Francesca Giulia Tavanti

Francesca Giulia Tavanti
She graduated in History of Contemporary Art at the Faculty of Philosophy and Literature in Florence. Between 2010 and 2013, she worked in the Department of Education of CCC Strozzina, Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi, Florence. For two years she was the Project Coordinator of the Galleria Bianconi, in Milan, since 2015 she is responsible for the relations with schools, universities and academies for the international festival dedicated to the relationship between Cinema and Visual Arts: Lo schermo dell'arte Film Festival di Firenze.

Alessio Bertini

Alessio Bertini
An art historian, educator and curator. During his studies he deepened the developments in English and American art between the 1980s and 1990s, with particular attention to the African-American art scene and the relationship between art, market and politics. From 2007 to 2014 he curated the public programs and educational activities at the Centro di Cultura Contemporanea Strozzina. Today he is in charge of educational programs related to the exhibitions of ancient, modern and contemporary art at Palazzo Strozzi.