INT 322 SMB

Plumbing is a system most people never think about until something goes wrong, but interior designers still have to think about every aspect of it because it decides where rooms can go and how they work. Plumbing is what brings water in and takes waste out. The part I had not thought about in detail was the three kinds of water. Potable water is safe to drink, gray water comes from sinks, bathtubs, and washing machines, and black water is waste water that contains sewage. Seeing them separated made it clear that not all used water has to be treated as waste. Where the waste goes was also new to me. Buildings connected to a municipal system send it to a sewer treatment plant, while others use a septic tank or even wetlands. The Living Building Challenge Water Petal and the Loom House case study showed that a building can be designed to handle its own water responsibly instead of just using it up. Toilets are the single largest use of water inside a building, so they are the best pl...

What stood out first was how much lighting affects the energy a building uses. The slides explained that lighting creates one of the biggest heat loads in an interior, and that the mistake designers make most often is over-lighting a space. The less lighting used , the less air conditioning is needed. We also followed electricity from the utility company through overhead or underground lines and transformers to the building, and learned about cable types, electrical symbols, and energy management devices. The second part of the unit moved into lamps, which are all about matching the light to the space . We compared incandescent, halogen, fluorescent, HID, and LED lighting. Incandescent lamps are warm, dimmable, and inexpensive, but they give off more heat than light. Fluorescent lamps are energy efficient, but disposing of them puts mercury in landfills. HID lamps are used in parking garages, factories, and outdoor areas, and LEDs last a long time but still have concerns over color con...

What stood out first was how much of our energy still comes from fuels that run out. The slides showed that oil is used in about 99% of vehicles and makes up roughly 40% of the energy we use in the U.S., and that 42% of our electricity comes from coal while only about 13% comes from renewable sources. The second half of the unit moved into HVAC, which is all about human comfort. We compared heating systems like hydronic, forced air, electric radiant, and wood, and cooling systems like heat pumps, split systems, and through-wall units. What I hadn’t thought about before is how much of this lands on the interior designer. Ducts, registers, and returns have to be planned together with light fixtures, sprinkler heads, smoke detectors, and ceiling details, or the design intent never actually gets built. It made me realize that a mechanical system isn’t just something the engineers handle, it decides what a designer is allowed to do with a ceiling or a wall. For my research I picked ...

In the reading and PowerPoint, it was mentioned that interior designers don’t deal with roof framing, because that is a structural issue, but we still have to respond to the shape of the roof since it shapes the space inside. The ceiling finish is also part of our job. Cathedral ceilings were the ones I had not thought about in detail. They were popular in the 1970s and make a room feel spacious, but they make it harder to integrate lighting, to heat and cool the space properly, and to keep a sense of the human scale. Gypsum wall board is a directly applied ceiling and the most common finish in homes. Plaster was used before wall board and is applied in a three-coat system over lath. In historical buildings, plasters were used to make crown molding and ceiling medallions. Suspended acoustical panel ceilings were what I took away most for commercial design. They are the preferred commercial ceiling because they control noise and give access to ductwork, electrical wiring, and sprink...