The 2020 South African Presidential Commission on the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) presented five development pillars for the South African 4IR strategy, with the People and Skills pillar emphasising the role of the education sector in South Africa’s successful global participation in the 4IR. The report identifies a lack of soft skills such as creativity and problem solving in new graduates, adversely affecting their work-preparedness and employability. The World Economic Forum’s 15 top skills for 2025 also placed soft skills as the top six future workplace skills. Tertiary educators have the opportunity and responsibility to prepare graduates for this shift to the 4IR-workplace by developing soft skills relevant to their discipline.

Multigenerational households are inhabited by three or more generations cohabiting; however, homes are not always designed to accommodate multiple generations. Having been raised within a home filled with grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, parents and siblings, the personal experience of the primary researcher has been drawn on to frame the analysis of the challenges associated with multigenerational living. Multigenerational living requires functional spaces: space that efficiently includes all occupants to create a harmonious environment.

Interior design is a discipline concerned with human inhabitation. It provides the capacity for inhabitant identities to inform and be informed by the interior. Interiors are cultural products, reflective of societal identity and taste (Königk & Khan 2015). Following Bourdieu (1979 [1984]), tastemaking is a repeated, cyclic process. As tastemakers, interior designers are responsible for deciding how selected goods are made desirable through responding to, interpreting and shaping the tastes of society. The cyclic nature of interiors is prevalent in the commercial realm. The conventional fit-out lifecycle is governed by lease periods of five years and the physical deterioration of shopfitted elements after ten years of use.

This paper stems from the need to develop and deliver a new module in sustainable interior design (BASD6B2) at a 2nd year level within a new Degree programme at the University of Johannesburg, in 2017.  This module’s development however relies on a reflection on another sustainable interior design module (BASD6B1) in the curriculum, offered at a 1st year level. The paper also secondly arises from the national call for the transformation and decolonisation of education programmes in South African tertiary institutions.

In March 2015 the South African Council for the Architectural Profession (SACAP) announced its intention to register new professional categories for interior designers. This will provide statutory recognition for the professional status of the interior design occupation and it will allow interior design occupational closure, a state where both the practice and title of the occupation will be regulated.

To reach this milestone interior design’s practical and scholarly endeavour was focussed on the professionalisation of the discipline;  a lacuna was produced in which the discipline did not adequately consider a separate identity for interior design. The pursuit of a stronger discrete identity could provide a stronger professional identity (Breytenbach, 2012).

Citizenship implies association and involvement in a community. Even though the conditions of involvement can be specified by government laws, citizenship is in fact not only a matter of politics, but actually an issue of culture and experience. It can therefore be described as a status and as a set of attitudes, associations and expectations that go beyond territorial boundaries. Active citizenship is the viewpoint that citizens should work for the improvement of their community. The notion requires active participation through economic contribution and volunteer work to improve life for all citizens.

The paper considers culture as a collection of meanings which are produced and consumed by a given social group. Thus, the generation of meaning would be analogous to the generation of culture. In the investigation of architectural (built) artefacts it is unusual to identify a representative sample; instead research focus is on the in-­depth precedent study. The purpose of this paper is to identify selection criteria for such a broad corpus of interior design artefacts (which may be studied from a semiotic perspective) as grounded theory requires a large and broad data sample. This is a novel application.

The  purpose  of  this  paper  is  to  discuss  the  benefits  of  embracing  constructivism  as  a conceptual  basis  for  the practice of teaching and learning in interior design degree programmes;  namely Bachelor of Technology,  and BA Honours offered at many of the institutions in South Africa.
 
Deliberation  is  given  to  using  a  constructivist  approach  to  both  teaching  and  learning, and  as  a  research paradigm to better align the research and practical components of these traditionally vocationally-­orientated, project-based design programmes.   
 

The mental and physical working context in which mental health‐care providers spend  most of their day is an  extremely stressful environment, specifically with regards to mental and physical well‐being. This environment is shaped by a number of influences such as job demands, patient related stresses  and political and economic pressures. All of these factors may eventually result in high levels of  staff burnout, decreased work efficacy and increased overall stress.

This paper reflects on research conducted on the role of interior designers in retail design within the South African retail sector. Based on three leading corporate retailers, the paper explores the contribution of interior designers to retail design in the South African clothing and footwear retail context. In 2008 these retail companies collectively held more than 50 per cent of a R96.2 billion retail market share.

Their primary turnover is generated through consumer purchases concluded in retail stores. The design of retail stores have become a means of marketing communication and are commonly used as a differentiation strategy by retailers. It is here that interior designers can make a considerable contribution to retailers.

This paper explores the impact of the draft Higher Education Qualification Framework (2004) on the current offering of the Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech). The draft HEQF does not include the qualification structure offered by previous technikon-type institutions. Articulation from Diploma into a fourth year (B. Tech) and thereafter postgraduate studies is not evident in the articulation possibilities of the draft HEQF.

In this paper, focus is placed on the offering of the programme: B.Tech Interior Design as offered by the Department of Interior Design, who forms part of the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture (FADA) at the University of Johannesburg.