Rajesh Shah is the Principal Designer and Founder of Raj Shah Associates Pte Ltd, a company providing workplace solutions, as well as the Executive Board Member of the International Federation of Interior Architects/Designers (IFI). With three decades of experience in the industry, Raj offers a deep understanding of the industry. Asia Designers Directory connects with Raj to find out more about his role at the IFI and his perspective on Asia’s interior architects/designers.
A central role of the International Federation of Interior Architects/Designers (IFI) is advancing the profession of interior architects/designers globally. Can you tell us about your role as an Executive Board Member of the IFI?
IFI is the United Nations of the global interior design industry, design associations/societies and professionals. Organisations from countries worldwide become members and thus have representation at the global level through IFI.
As an IFI Executive Board Member, my task is to work with the President and the rest of the IFI Board Members, supported by the CEO and IFI Secretariat, to collectively advance the profession of interior design. We discuss and deliberate on issues affecting the interior design industry in the various regions and countries that IFI member organisations are in – that is international or global thinking – not directly addressing regional or national problems.
We are tasked to identify and offer high-level possible solutions to issues, problems, and difficult matters to help lessen or alleviate the arduous challenges that interior designers face within their professional spheres. The solutions are brainstormed with the assistance of specialists and/or industry experts so that IFI can garner support. This is of course slightly easier when a world body approaches such individuals and/or organisations.
You are currently the Honorary Advisor of the Society of Interior Designers Singapore (SIDS). How does this appointment help you better fulfil your duties as an Executive Board Member of the IFI?
As the Honorary Advisor to the SIDS for many years now, the role has trained me to think broader and more in-depth of the issues facing SIDS and local interior designers. Having been in this industry for almost 30 years now, I can say “seen it all, and done it all”. However, even the same situations and issues require new perspectives to help resolve. So, my motto is to always try to offer advice where it would benefit the collective rather than specific interest groups.
This “training” would come in handy when I now have the honour and opportunity to offer myself to the IFI on a very different scale. Being from Singapore, we are very “international” but still very small in terms of the scale of the industry and its problems. To be able to offer advice on global matters will require me to be open and exposed to a much larger audience and this means having to learn from my fellow IFI Board Members, who all come to the table with different experiences and viewpoints.
As an Executive Member from Singapore, will there be more opportunities created for Asia’s interior architects/designers to be showcased on a global level?
Well, as an Executive Board Member from Singapore, I can work with the IFI team and hope to be able to facilitate and ensure an inclusive environment for interior architects/designers from Asia and the world collectively; it would not be astute of me to just focus on “my region” and forsaking others.
On the contrary, I am a firm believer that if we want to raise our standards, we cannot self-judge or self-felicitate. We must compete with the rest of the world and only with active participation on the world stage, can Asian interior architects/designers gain their rightful place in the world.
“As an Executive Board Member from Singapore, I can work with the IFI team and hope to be able to facilitate and ensure an inclusive environment for interior architects/designers from Asia and the world collectively; it would not be astute of me to just focus on ‘my region’ and forsaking others.”
You have three decades of experience in the industry. How do you think the profession of interior architects/designers can be further elevated in Asia?
The industry and profession, whether in Singapore or Asia, have gone through its own natural evolutions. Our neighbours in ASEAN have also been able to legislate the interior design profession in their countries, and thus elevate the interior design profession as a whole.
In Singapore, after many years of hard work and effort, Singapore has as of early 2022, introduced a nationwide Singapore Interior Design Accreditation Scheme (SIDAS). The aim is to get interior designers practising in Singapore (and the region) “certified” and be recognised as professionals of international standards. Also, the interior design education has become more recognised and diversified. More Institutes of Higher Learning (IHLs) are offering interior design as a diploma and/or degree course.
With the spectacular growth of China over the last few decades, interior design as a profession has gained wider recognition. With its large population base and reputation as the factory of the world, interior design in China has only grown from strength to strength. Whatever interior designers can dream of in terms of design, details and materials (traditional or new), China is capable of producing.
So where do we go from here, especially for Asia? I believe that the interior design profession and industry are still very fragmented and “nationalistic”. Each individual country and/or region has its own rules, laws and ways of practising interior design. It would be an advantage if all of these could be streamlined someday to make Asia a force to reckon with – one that would lead with design, and for others to emulate.
