The inside job: interior design - interior decoration firms in New Mexico

New Mexico Business Journal,  March, 1992  by Sharon Frink

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What's inside really counts, as proven by New Mexico interior designers.

Designers do a lot more than present a pretty picture. They look to intended use of a facility and who the occupants will be; how light will illuminate; how noise will be muffled; how floor coverings will endure; how pedestrian traffic will flow.

And certified designers must study and pass many of the same requirements imposed on architects while also maintaining a unique role in building construction and renovation.

Architects and interior designers go hand-in-glove. There are designers in architectural firms, and architects in interior design firms.

To separate interior designers from architects, and interior designers from decorators, New Mexico has licensed nearly 200 interior designers since 1988.

Applicants must either be licensed in one of the five other jurisdictions which officially sanction designers -- Alabama, Connecticut, Florida, Louisiana and Washington, D.C. -- or pass the National Council for Interior Design's qualification test. Six years of education and/or experience must precede the test.

In fact, it is a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year imprisonment and/or a $1,000 fine for anyone to misrepresent themselves as an interior designer, says Carmen Payne, executive director of the New Mexico Board of Interior Design.

"An interior designer is to a decorator what a plastic surgeon is to a make-up artist," says decorator Susan McWilliam of Albuquerque's Prairie Designs. "We are both essential to the appearance of a home or office, and we work well together, but designers are more structural; decorators are more cosmetic."

Interior Designer Carol Sorensen, president of New Mexico's chapter of the American Society of Interior Design (ASID) and a member for 11 years, says the industry has experienced a generalized decrease in the quantity of work during the last few years of construction slowdowns -- except in the northern sections of the state where there's been no slackening.

"At the same time, designers have enjoyed a resurgence of quality," she says. "Clients are requesting better interiors, and we're happy to provide them."

Sorensen cites the New Mexico Educators Federal Credit Union building as an example. It won its designer, Albuquerque's Barbara Belanger, a coveted first place in a national competition.

Belanger, president of McKown Belanger Interior Architecture, says her design firm was also involved and particularly proud of its efforts for the Lovelace Journal Center facility.

"As a licensed commercial interior designer, there are many more things to consider than appearance," says Belanger. "You're talking fire codes, exit codes, what is beneficial to the client, flammable toxicity of materials."

Belanger, among those who lobbied for getting an accredited interior design certificate requirement in New Mexico, says having the right qualified designer on the job is essential.

The Tete a Tete salon in Santa Fe, designed by Suby Bowden and Sarah Combs-Gage of Morrow Bowden, Santa Fe, also received accolades in national competition, garnering a Grand Master Award in the same event in which Belanger took first place honors.

The trends today, says Sorensen, are toward more environmentally-conscious planning. The air quality of interiors is given more consideration now than ever, in an overall attempt to promote healthier occupants and a cleaner world.

While nearly every other industry has fallen on hard times, the health and fitness sector has been booming. Taking advantage of that anomaly has been interior architect and designer Del Reanne Johnson.

Owner of Maurada Designs in Albuquerque, Johnson designs gym interiors in New Mexico, Florida, California and New York. She won the Exceptional Interior Award in 1990 for her work on Gold's Gym in Albuquerque.

"The trend in health clubs on the West Coast is to blend interior and exterior workouts; to bring the outdoors inside and design outside activity areas adjacent to the club," Johnson says. "On the East Coast, it's glitz and glamour." New Mexico is borrowing a little of both.

Other New Mexico sites Johnson and her associate Amanda Heidke have designed include the Albuquerque Little Theatre, First United Methodist Church (Albuquerque); Santa Fe Community College, and Eye Associates of New Mexico.

Licensed in two states, Johnson says the traditional Southwest style is still in demand, primarily by her out-of-state clients.

"The biggest difference between the New Mexico market and the East or West Coasts is that creativity is more accepted here. The coasts thrive on traditionalism," she says.

"California and New York have some wonderful designers, but we have a warmth you don't find anywhere else," contends Johnson.

"What scares most people about designers is the fear that they will come in and take over, impose their tastes and style on the client," she says. "In reality we give a client what they need and want, not just what we want."

Maria Raby-Mondragon, president of Contract Associates commercial and office furnishings in Albuquerque, agrees.