Intern interior designer leadership skills, expected by practitioners in Canada, were explored in this thesis to identify implications for interior designer education. Employment of a 16 question quantitative, online survey, examined National Council of Interior Design Qualification (NCIDQ) certified practitioners beliefs about intern leadership skills. A majority of the 116 participants agreed a leader skill set, that includes authentic and design leadership skills, is valuable for interns to have in practice. Six authentic leadership skills: self-improvement, self-monitoring, goal-commitment, openness, positivity, and composure alongside four design leadership skills: adaptability, professional, building-relationships and collaborative rank as the top ten skills. Respondent practitioners also hold post-secondary interior design educators, interior designers, and interns most accountable for leadership education. Recommendations for interior designer education include increasing authentic leadership development opportunities and practitioner involvement. Further, unification of leadership perceptions and consistent leadership language, along the full interior designer education path, is encouraged for programmatic success. / October 2016

This research entails a close analysis of the contemporary home environment. The study of the home environment and the relationship between domestic spaces and residents is a noteworthy trend in design studies. This opens up the possibility of investigating gender influence on interior design. This study focuses on the role of women in designing living spaces’ interiors, to unveil the women's role and participation in their home environment. The main focus of this study is the design role of women in family living rooms, particularly in the context of Jeddah city, Saudi Arabia. The study articulates how women leave identity footprints on the space they have designed and used. My research indicates that the interior design of any space is more complex than simply shaping the use of space; it also reinforces the woman’s influence. The methodological framework has been structured into two main approaches: a case study approach, which involved in-depth case studies of living spaces, and an ethnographical approach, which involved in-depth interviews with middle-class housewives in their living rooms. The latter approach aimed to seek information about experiences, performances, interactions and values in the home environment, and enables identity presentation in the family living room. In addition, associated methods, such as photographic and video records, coding the living space features and visual observation of the living room were used to document every detail of the living space, to enrich data collection and unpack the environmental meanings. These mixed methods helped to understand the reality of women’s home experiences and provide a compelling portrait of women’s roles and identities within their living spaces. The main theoretical paradigms are Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity and Erving Goffman’s work on the presentation of self in social interaction, to investigate the gender roles and types of performance in the domestic living rooms. The practice of structuring the living room, furnishing and decorating the space interiors and the spatial arrangement illustrate the different circumstances in which women play their roles and have influence in distinct ways in the living rooms’ contexts. How Saudi women use the living space for their private activities and social relationships is examined, to investigate the presentation of Saudi women’s identity and position in the home and beyond. This research has explored Saudi women’s performativity through their design experience and everyday engagement with the interior space and objects within their domestic living rooms; these performances represent their priorities in various roles through which social visibility is assumed. This research has established a new understanding of what goes on behind the closed doors of Jeddah homes. It has been found that Saudi housewives (with no formal interior design education or qualifications) dominate the design of domestic interiors. A new group of designers has been identified, who need to be recognised and acknowledged. In this research context, these Saudi housewives in Jeddah are amateur homemakers and interior designers, designing their home spaces and doing the job like any other professional designers. In this case, they must be acknowledged socially.

We have a tendency to want to sort our surroundings, we set things against each other, value them and place them in a hierarchical order.Where something goes up, something else goes down.We attribute different properties to materials, techniques and spaces and load them with values. Our perception of the environment is based on a collective construction. Textiles are sorted among the home, women and decoration while glass is associated with exclusivity, traditional masculine craftsmanship and architecture.Where something goes up, something else goes down.Textile can be defined as material, like fiber, or as technique, like weaving, knitting, sewing. Threads that together form a composition by running over and under each other.Where something goes up, something else goes downCan I disrupt the hierarchical order between textile and glass by merging them? Because, I would like to change our view of how we can use textiles in a spatial context.My experience is that textiles in spatial and architectural contexts are often something added afterwards to adjust things that the building process has not considered. But other materials such as glass have an obvious position as part of the definition of space.

L’architecte-peintre, scénographe et paysagiste émigré russe André Beloborodoff est un artiste oublié de la première moitié du XXème siècle. Il commence une carrière prestigieuse dans la Saint-Pétersbourg prérévolutionnaire, sous l’égide du renouveau néoclassique. En exil, il a vécu et travaillé à Londres, à Paris et à Rome, où il était connu pour ses vues d’Italie et ses chefs-d’œuvre architecturaux, le château de Caulaincourt en France et la villa Pepoli pour Maurice Sandoz à Rome. L’œuvre extrêmement originale et personnelle est influencée par les divers courants et pays dans lesquels il a vécu : la Russie impériale, la France de l’entre-deux-guerres d’une élite privilégiée, l’Italie artistique fasciste avec le mouvement Novecento mais aussi métaphysique avec ses amis Giorgio De Chirico, Savinio, Dalí et Eugène Berman. L’Italie et le classicisme transcendent son art et son architecture. Il y intègre discrètement la modernité et l’associe au monde surréaliste et onirique. Beloborodoff fait partie d’un petit groupe d’architectes-décorateurs privilégiés au service d’une élite de luxe. Ses égaux sont Emilio Terry, Jean-Charles Moreux, Tomaso Buzzi et Armando Brasini. Eternellement métaphysique, inconnu jusqu’à présent et défendu par Mario Praz, il est un acteur majeur du réalisme magique. / The Russian émigré architect and painter, stage and garden designer André Beloborodoff is a forgotten artist from the first half of the 20th century. Under the aegis of the neoclassical revival he embarked on a prestigious career in pre-revolutionary Saint Petersburg. In exile he lived and worked in London, Paris and Rome, where he became known for his Italian scenes and his architectural masterpieces, the Château de Caulaincourt in France and the Villa Pepoli for Maurice Sandoz in Rome. His highly original and individualistic work was influenced by the various movements and countries within which he lived: Imperial Russia; the inter-war France of a privileged elite; the artistic, fascist Italy by not only the Novecento movement but also the metaphysical movement with his friends Giorgio de Chirico, Savinio, Dalí and Eugène Berman. Italy and classicism perfuse his art and architecture through his subtle blending of modernity into a surrealistic and dreamlike world. Beloborodoff was part of a small group of privileged architects and interior designers working for an extravagant elite. His peers were Emilio Terry, Jean-Charles Moreux, Tomaso Buzzi and Armando Brasini. Eternally metaphysical, as yet unknown and championed by Mario Praz, he is a major protagonist of magical realism.