Bevel: Canadian Interiors Conversations

In this episode of Bevel we dive into a major shift in the regulation of our profession here in Ontario, the kind that could reshape how one qualifies as a Registered Interior Designer.In 2023, ARIDO, the Association of Registered Interior Designers of Ontario, initiated the Examination Alternative Project, or EAP. At its core, this project responds to an evolving regulatory landscape — one that demands a licensing process that is not only rigorous and accountable but also equitable, transparent, and reflective of Canadian practice.Traditionally, the NCIDQ exam has served as the standard path to registration. But under Ontario’s Direct Regulation Model — a framework that places ARIDO directly accountable to both the Ontario Association of Architects and the Office of the Fairness Commissioner — ARIDO must ensure that any examination it requires is valid, reliable, and fair. That includes having the authority to develop or revise qualifications where needed, particularly to remove unnecessary barriers to entry.Enter the EAP: a Canadian-developed alternative to the NCIDQ that maintains professional rigour while intentionally rethinking how competencies are assessed. It draws from previous Canadian frameworks like the Intern Competency Review System and introduces new evaluation methods, including an oral “Entrance Interview” that replaces traditional exam-style gatekeeping.Equity and inclusion aren’t just buzzwords here — the entire project is being audited by an external EDI consultant to minimize cultural, economic, and linguistic bias in both content and delivery. This aligns with the Fair Access to Regulated Professions Act and reflects ARIDO’s obligation to create fair access to licensure for all qualified practitioners, not just those who fit the status quo.While this Canadian option won’t replace the NCIDQ — which ARIDO still recommends for those working in U.S. jurisdictions — it will give candidates meaningful choice. I sit down with Sharon Portelli, Executive Director at ARIDO to better understand how and why the EAP was developed, what it means for the profession, and why it represents a bold step forward for design regulation in Canada.

Chatter is exploding about advancements in AI. Every industry is sitting up and taking notice, including, of course, the A&D industry. These creatives are intrigued not only by how AI can help design teams by not only reducing overall project lead times, but also expanding creative discovery by memorizing insights from thousands, if not millions, of previous project data. Software such as DALL-E 2, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion are seen as tools to speed up sketching and other ideation processes, producing a plethora of renderings for comparison and further development. Advocates praise how AI-enhanced technologies will simplify many routine office and design tasks, replacing current software products and freeing designers to concentrate on other aspects of their business. Yet there are critics urging caution, as debates are emerging around what, if any, regulatory interventions governments should take to protect from potential fraudulence and exploitation. In this episode of Bevel we hear from Andrew Lane, co-founder of digby; George Foussias, Creative Director of mood.designlab; and Mark Cichy, Director of Design Technology at HOK, who gathered for the latest INSight session hosted by Canadian Interiors and Black Bread + Jam to explore issues that range from hopeful to concerning, and delve into compelling, real-world examples of how creative industries are already leveraging these emerging technologies and what they mean for the future.

“Architecture is not the result of finance capitalism but rather is finance capitalism” / “Just as architecture has helped produce finance capitalism, finance capitalism has helped produce architecture.” Those two passages appear early in Matthew Soules’s new book, titled Icebergs, Zombies, and the Ultra Thin, which serves as an indictment of how finance capitalism changes not only architectural forms, but the very nature of our cities and societies. The impetus for this book arose from the 2008 global financial crisis, which revealed, among other things, the damage done by unchecked housing speculation. Yet in the ensuing years, says Soules, the use of architecture as an investment tool has only accelerated heightening inequality and contributed to worldwide financial instability. We rarely consider architecture to be an important factor in contemporary economic and political debates, yet Soules – an associate professor of architecture at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver – demonstrates how unoccupied ultra-thin pencil towers rising in our cities, or cavernous "iceberg" homes burrowing many stories below street level, function as wealth storage for the superrich, while communities around the globe are blighted by zombie and ghost urbanism, marked by unoccupied neighborhoods and abandoned housing developments, issues on which the discipline of architecture is largely mute.