Our Interior Architectural Design Progam:
Location:
The Interior Architectural Design Program of the Design Technology Department is located at a satellite campus called the Academy of Entertainment & Technology (AET). It is several blocks northeast of the main campus at 1660 Stewart Street, Santa Monica, CA 90404.
What the Interior Architectural Design Program Offers:
The Interior Architectural Design Program at Santa Monica College is a multi-level program that offers an Associate of Arts Degree in Interior Architectural Design.
Professional Certificates are also available in Interior Architectural Design, Set Design and Art Direction for Film and Television, and CAD Production and Design.
The program teaches beginning, intermediate, and advanced employment skills and offers practical internship positions and job opportunities in the design industry.
The program offers four Professional Certificates and an Associate of Arts Degree in Interior Architectural Design.
- Professional Training - Interior Architectural Design Level I
- Professional Training - Interior Architectural Design Level II
- Set Design & Art Direction For Film & TV
- CAD Production & Design
- AA Degree in Interior Architectural Design (60 unit, 2 year degree)
- In addition, there are 44 units of Elective Choices.
We are a two year school, but have over 30, 3 unit classes totalling 90 semester units.
There is a developmental sequence of 7 CAD classes using AutoCAD software. For more information on the classes and certificates offered, see Courses & Certificates > Certificates.
Program Focus:
Our focus is to offer an industry relevant curriculum, developing marketable student skills, taught by seasoned working professionals at an extremely affordable price.
Through our extensive Internship Program, (see Student Center > Internship Program), our students try the industry as soon as possible to make their existing course work meaningful. They often get employment, through our Industry Job Announcements, before they finish their career educational path, or after certificate completion or graduation, showing that the Program is Industry current and our Students have marketable skills.
See a partial list of student success stories at: Our Program > Alumni.
Teachers:
The need for working professionals in the Industry is important for teaching information that is current and relevant. Our instructors are degreed, practicing professionals successful educational system. On staff, we have Architects, Professional Designers, Designer/Architecs, and Specialist, which creates a quality level of education that has givin Santa Monica College its strong reputation.
To take a closer look at our faculty, see Meet Our Faculty > Faculty-List.
Awards:
Santa Monica College is very proud of our student achievements. see Our Program > Awards webpage.
One of our proud successes was Winning First Place in the American Institute of Architects/Los Angeles Interior Architecture Annual Design Competition:
- Industry Juried Design Charrette
- 4 Year and 2 Year Universities/Colleges in Southern California Compete from Architecture, Interior Architecture, Interior Design, and Environmental Design Programs. Represented schools were:
- USC
- Art Center
- Woodbury University
- San Diego State University
- UCLA Extension
- California State University at Long Beach Interior Architectural Design
- Design Institute of San Diego
- Otis School of Art & Design
- Calif. State Poly Dept. of Architecture
- SCI-ARC
- and other schools
- $10,000.00 Award to SMC INterior Architectural Design Students
- Project: CIPHER: An Entertainment Venue for the American Intelligence Community
- Team Members: JAMES BUTTERLY and CARLOS MUNOZ
- These Interior Architectural Design Students were recognized by the Santa Monica College Board of Trustees and were Featured First Place Winners in LA Architect Supplement.
Internships:
We have an award winning internship program. We encourage students to take internships even in their 1st semester and repeat the internship at different companies so that they may explore what aspect of the profession to pursue. The Interior Architectural Design Internship Program continues to partner with Industry, currently offering more than 92 different Company Internship opportunities for our Students. See the Student Center > Internship Program.
The Interior Architectural Design Program continues to offer Trade liaison activities for our students, for example:
- Los Angeles Chapter of the Designers' Lighting Forum
- Design Week, Neo-ConWest at the L.A. Mart
- Avenue of Art and Design, Santa Monica Design District Showroom Events
- WESTWEEK, at the Pacific Design Center Showrooms
- The Pasadena Showcase House of 10,000 Square Feet
- A Day with Set Decorators @ the CBS Radford Studios with the Set Design Society of America
The SMC Interior Architectural Design Program Goals:
- Provide an excellent skill directed education in Interior Architectural Design, Set Design, and CAD Production and Design, for both academic transfer and the completion of Professional Certificates, that are job current.
- Meet current Industry needs
- Be an affordable educational price
- Have strong, industry current curriculum, incorporating Universal Design and Access for All
- Have exceptional experienced instructors, with professional experience
- Have a student base drawn from world-wide cultures and locations
- Be competitive with other strong design programs in Southern California
- Offer a clean, comfortable, safe, design focused facilities, with parking
- Have classrooms equipped with industry dictated current computer software and equipment and materials
- Offer class scheduling, convenient and efficient for working and at-home students, together with distance learning world wide class offerings for busy professionals, alter-abled individuals, and international students
- Have class offerings matched by local, regional, national, and international student demands
- Provide a wide variety of industry internships that lead to skilled, paid employment
- An additional final goal is to have our "employed" student return to the classroom as a Working Professional and Guest Speaker to inspire our current students, and then, in turn, host our students as interns and then hire our students in paid positions so that the SMC "we teach, we train, we place" cycle is continuously repeated for our Interior Architectural Design students.
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