Blumenfeld aiming to bring interiors in from cold.

During her 2007 term as the new AIA New York Chapter president, Joan Blumenfeld hopes to draw on her experience as an interior designer to help raise the bar for interior design throughout the industry.

"We have to push for high standards in interior design the same way we push for higher standards of architecture in terms of issues like design excellence and sustainability," Blumenfield said. "It is our responsibility to question why the standards for interior design can't be better."

Blumenfield, currently design principal for interiors with Perkins + Will, is well versed in the intricacies of both base building and interior design, having worked in both camps herself.

She was thoroughly trained in exteriors at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and then spent several years designing buildings along the East Coast.

Blumenfield fell into interior work quite by accident when she was hired by Butlers Rogers Baskett in the early 1990's during the peak of the recession. The firm had no exterior work at all and Blumenfield tried her hand at interiors.

Her first project with the firm, designing the office interiors for Scientific America magazine, provided her with a crash course in the fundamental design principal of branding--learning how to communicate the client's products through the creation of two intersecting circular panels that became galleries for the magazine's artwork

The field of interiors provides faster opportunities for the evolution of designer's aesthetics than base building architecture as the work is done at a much faster rate than exteriors--approximately every 10-15 years as leases expire.

Though interior design is admittedly "an inclusive and messy process" through which designers work with people generally in the process of using the space, it didn't take Blumenfield long to become hooked. Her passion grew with experience when she learned both how all-encompassing the process was, and how the design could directly affect the emotions of the people who use the space.

"When you think about it, you spend most of your waking hours in your office," Blumenfield said. "Aesthetics really affect the way that you feel and so as an interior designer you must always remain cognizant of this, while you are trying to figure out the best way of making a quality environment for people to work in."

It is the broad sweep of the field that she hopes to communicate to AIA members, and to the wider public community, some of whom believe interior design is only about "picking fabric and furniture." To this end she has drafted a letter to Mayor Michael Bloomberg asking him to set up a panel for design excellence. The creation of an interior design exhibit at the AIA offices are also on the horizon.

Blumenfield hopes to use her position to advocate for legislation such as the passage of a state bill to establish certification requirements for interior designers, and for changes in the procurement process.

"This position really gives me the opportunity to have a positive impact on the public process, to use the public process to affect the quality of what is being done in interior design," Blumenfield said.

The time is ripe for more people to pay attention to these issues. The establishment of LEED standards throughout the field and new city legislation requiring builders of city projects to build green has pushed people's awareness of design techniques, materials and the affects that they have on clients to the forefront, she said. "People are already looking at things more holistically," Blumenfield said.

Blumenfield has seen these changes in her own work. Ever since Mayor Bloomberg re-vamped office layouts at City Hall that became a show pony of design excellence to attract and retain employees, business managers have been earger to give up offices in lieu of wide open communal space.

Likewise, she has honed her aesthetics in this direction. One of her favorite projects was the design of the offices of Planned Parenthood. To motivate people to come out of offices and to foster a more democratic environment, managers at Planned Parenthood headquarters on West 32nd Street challenged her to make an office that was "the most fun place to work in New York City."

The new wide open space, replete with a terrace, cafe, fitness rooms, coffee bar and nooks and crannies where people can escape for some private space has officially been recognized by employees as a place that helps them to work together.

Blumenfield hopes that her work with AIA will help to foster the kind of environment where more exterior and interior designers work together on larger projects. Her own experience with such projects has been one of the most satisfying aspects of her job. A prime example of this is the Sotheby's auction house that she worked on as an architect for Swanke, Hayden, Connell with KFB Architects. The design process through which the two teams tried to understand how they were feeling about the building, created a lot of good synergy, she said. The warm neutral toned palate of the 10 floors of the building, the movable panels designed to offer a gallery for the changing art in 75,000 s/f of exhibit space, and contemporary style of the interiors matched the total glass and steel reskinning of the outside of the building.

"The design of Sotheby's offers a seamless flow from the inside to the outside. If you'd look at the two buildings, you would never know that two different teams did the interior and exterior work," Blumenfield said.

It is this kind of exchange she hopes her position this year will foster. "Architects are constantly talking about how we can improve base building architecture, about things like how do we ensure more housing gets built, how do we ensure the quality of that housing meets people's expectations.

"If I can use this year to really stir up a similar dialogue for interior design, then I will feel like I have accomplished something important."