Pan: The three elements you mentioned are all co-related, and when you do spatial designs you have to take care of all those parameters well. In Hong Kong, we often have a lot of constraints from the physical size of a site. I’d say we have to take care of the clients’ needs first of all, because there are a lot of requirements concerning how to tackle a small space. That said, we come up with a lot of designs that satisfy multi-functional needs, from living to commercial environments, we all need to create good value within a tiny space and with tight budget. I also like to emphasize that Hong Kong designers serve many clients outside of the territory, especially in China, where we have to confront problems about the usage of big spaces, which is a challenge for Hong Kong designers. Cultural factors are also a main issue for us to tackle. Cho: Of course it is best to satisfy all three, but in our company the priority is with the clients, and then the public. Surjaseputra: It is important to consider brand positioning, which derives the right study of the right market. Once you grasp that, there cannot be anything wrong with the design result, because it is business oriented. Whatever you design must produce positive financial results, especially in the current economic climate. In Indonesia we run seminars on the business side of design, including how to manage and run a company. Business and design co-exist. Su: In China more and more people are entering this profession. However many Tsing Hua interior design graduates who go abroad to further their studies choose other majors. This is quite an interesting phenomenon. In a way interior design encourages consumption and even over-consumption, and turns many interior designers into business people, but is that their true responsibility? I think otherwise. I think interior designers should lead people towards a more healthy lifestyle. Chinese society is a collective society, not an individualistic one, so unhealthy behavior has a big effect on the whole society. Choong: It’s always going to be a balance between the client, user and the design itself. In our work because we serve our clients, a lot of times we have to serve their needs. But the needs of clients are very much related to that of users. Let’s say in retail, the clients will understand the needs of the customers. If we ignore the clients and users, design is reduced to the level of pure art. Yet in product design, like Apple, they could generate a need for their product through their creativity. Iijima: Even though designers should respect the clients’ wishes, the designers must also be concerned about the public. For example, in its commercial, Uniqlo gives us a message of how design should be, and this image also enhances the brand itself. Interior designer is just a label we apply to ourselves, but we need not stick to the stereotypical boundaries of an interior designer. In the West, we consider space as a void, an empty space. But in Chinese, space refers to the space in between, inside and outside have no definition. Space is not just an empty box, and interior design is not just decorating this box, but we are also dealing with atmosphere.

Pan: Studying interior design to me is an interesting experience, because we need not only to learn about the physical approach, but also the psychological. You have to know about the experience you are trying to create for the user. It has to be very broad. The strength of Hong Kong interior designers is we create a lot of business value for commercial clients. However, in the past few years, the government has started o stress the importance of preservation. That’s why we have a lot of historical revitalization projects, and in the future we will hear more about how interior designers can contribute to the living experience of this city. Technology, culture lifestyle, atmosphere and taste are key words in which we could project the uniqueness of Asia.

Cho: There has been a lot of new development in Korea since the 1988 Olympics. Interior designers need to pay more attention to respecting traditional culture. It is also important for interior designers to think of the environment. We must think beyond Korea or Asia and focus on reuse and sustainability for the whole world.

Surjaseputra: I met a fortune teller recently. He put a question to me that opened my eyes. We were sitting in a café in a mall, and he asked why that one café is full of people, and the one next to it is empty? He is sure the food is both good, but why is one better than the other? The difference must be something else. He said the role of designers is giving soul to a place, it’s like giving birth, and educating your child to become someone. Interior designers fill up a place with soul, not materials. This is the value of interior design.

Su: Interior design is not an essential aspect of life. It is just a kind of entertainment. We cannot expect it to last forever, and we should simply enjoy the process. But processes are important in life, and entertainment can help us get through life more easily. Our role as interior designers is to help enrich people’s lives and give them something to busy themselves with.

Choog: Although we like to think interior design fulfills the needs of users, their psychological needs, etc, at the end of the day, in developing nations, the value of interior designers is based on vanity. That’s the reason a person would pay $50,000 for a watch that tells the same time as a $100 watch. Interior designers feed the vanity of our clients, because our clients wants to showoff his success and lifestyle.

Iijima: Wherever you go in the world, this kind of convention centre looks the same. But at the lunch today, he really enjoyed it. These kinds of experience he can remember, even though the place looks the same.

Pan: In Hong Kong, we launched the RIDA project 3 years ago, and we talked to many people on whether they support registration or not. Most of the objection comes from whether we can define the quality of designers using registration system. If you want to use examination to define the profession, you exclude other practitioners. If you use the architecture system to weigh interior design, that becomes problematic. In China they put the discipline within architectural school. In Hong Kong’s case we try to educate interior design in a multi-disciplinary fashion, asking students to learn different kinds of design. But now we are moving back to a more discipline specific curriculum.

Cho: We feel we have the same situation. Other fields—such as urban planning, architecture, decoration, lighting design, furniture have their own identities. We feel that KOSID must keep the identity of interior designer positive, to give the profession legal protection. It is the only way to keep our identity.

Surjaseputra: When we talk about identity, we talk about a corporate image. If you talk about identity, you need to brand it and to position it in the market. We hold exhibitions in Indonesia to educate the public on what we do. We have to educate our clients, and to teach it in schools and through media. It’s an ongoing process.

Su: In the future, the role of interior designers will become clearer and their status more independent. Just as we need to change our clothes everyday, people’s living environments will need to be changed from time to time. Secondly, architecture will gradually lose its importance in the future while interior design work will continue. I don’t believe that human beings can go on building new buildings forever. It is just not sustainable. The day will come when we have to stop building, and when that day comes, the role of interior designers will be well defined.

Choong: If we were to look at history, very long time ago, there was no definition for architecture, design and artist. These posts were all done by the same person. As life got more sophisticated, there emerged a need for specialization. As we progress, there will be clearer definition between the various professions. Once in a while you get designers who undertake various designs very well, like Stark, but they are the exceptions to the rule. But most of us need to specialize. That’s where we get our value from.

Iijima: The function of interior design in Japan is maybe to make a connection between society, user, fashion, economy and even social phenomenon. An interior designer’s role is as an inter-mediator and communicator.