In general, activities of the Research Group were conducted in line with the mission as follows:
- To develop interior design knowledge and practice
- To develop the quality of the ITB human resource
- To provide services of research, education and community empowerment
- To serve the Interior Design Study Program and other bachelor degrees, master and doctoral programs of ITB
- To develop contents and methods of interior design education including the academic curriculum
- To develop network and cooperation with the relevant institutions and sectors.
The research policy is designed to develop the understanding of Human and Spatial relationships and to solve the relevant problems of the stake holders. The development of interior design knowledge basically refers to human and interior environment relationship as the resources of main research problems. Essentially because interior design as a profession is meant to respond to people’s problem of needs for a quality environment according to the certain required condition. Research problems arise because of the assumption that there is no harmonious relationship between those two factors. Environmental factors, which become objects of research include the interior material including color, texture and pattern; lighting, acoustic, air conditioning including temperature, humidity, aroma, and circulation as well as its hygiene. Human factors that are studied comprising anthropometry and spatial density, ergonomic, perception, emotion (affection and mood), cognition and behavior towards environment including concept of privacy, crowd, way finding, and cultural studies of place.
The scope of topics of human-interior environment research are as follows:
- Researches, which are evaluative, primarily focused on objects or designed interiors recently or built in the past that aims to investigate functional and aesthetical values as well as cultural norms. E.g.: Post occupancy evaluation project to investigate the effectiveness of newly designed interiors, or historical studies of Indonesian vernacular, traditional or colonial architecture.
- Other topics of research are exploratory intended to uncover the phenomenon of interaction between the users (Workers, students, consumers, patients or others) and a particular place because of their historical, spiritual, ideology, emotion, moral and ethics, myths, knowledge, and material. Examples: Place science, place attachment, and place identity.
- Predictive research, intended to predict environmental factors that potentially influence people. Example: Influences of environmental attributes or ambiance, like color, lighting, music, thermal or aroma in place on psychological responses of the people in a public space like museum, café, store or patient in hospital rooms; the future trend in colors and other visual styles.
- Other researches intended to investigate the effectiveness of design process and methods, and the learning process.
