This course explores furniture and interior environments through design history, human experience, materials, and contemporary lifestyles. Students examine how furnishings shape the way people live, work, gather, and rest, moving from residential typologies into historical styles, modern movements, construction methods, materials, and quality standards.
The course also covers human-centered design, ergonomics, commercial furnishings, adaptive living, and sustainability, including restoration, reuse, and the future of furnishings. Through lectures, research, and applied projects, students build the visual literacy, material awareness, and professional vocabulary needed to evaluate, select, and communicate furnishing solutions within the interior design process.
What You Will Learn
- Define furniture typologies and explain how furnishings support lifestyle, function, wellness, and spatial experience
- Identify residential furniture categories and evaluate how they support different living patterns
- Recognize major historical furniture periods and their defining stylistic characteristics
- Analyze modern movements such as Bauhaus, Mid-Century Modern, Scandinavian, Art Deco, and Minimalism
- Explain furniture construction, materials, joinery, upholstery, and manufacturing methods
- Apply ergonomic and anthropometric principles to evaluate comfort, accessibility, and usability
- Differentiate residential and commercial furnishings and their performance requirements
- Evaluate sustainability, adaptive reuse, and ethical considerations in furniture selection
This course is available for 30 days. You can choose when to start your access period. Once you activate, you will have 30 days to complete it (access the course materials, quizzes, projects and videos). You may request one extension of seven (7) days. Other extension requests will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Videos are not downloadable.
