interior design

Design of interior spaces, closely related to architecture and sometimes including interior decoration. The designer's goal is to produce a coordinated and harmonious whole in which the architecture, site, function, and visual aspects of the interior are unified, pleasing to mind and body, and appropriate to the activities to be pursued there. Design criteria include harmony of colour, texture, lighting, scale, and proportion. Furnishings must be in proportion to the space they occupy and to the needs and lifestyles of the residents. The design of such nonresidential spaces as offices, hospitals, stores, and schools places clear organization of functions ahead of purely aesthetic concerns.

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Art of arranging living or dried plant material for adornment of the body or home, for public and religious ceremonies, or for festivals. Line, form, colour, texture, balance, porportion, and scale are important aspects of floral arrangement, as is the container. The earliest pictorial example is a 2nd-century Roman mosaic from the villa of Hadrian at Tivoli depicting a basket of cut flowers. Dutch and French still-life paintings of the 17th–18th centuries show the popularity of floral arrangements. Their long history in China and Japan is often associated with religious and philosophical beliefs; Japanese forms have become influential in the West. Seealso ikebana.

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U.S. holiday. Originally held (1868) in commemoration of soldiers killed in the American Civil War, its observance later extended to all U.S. war dead. Most states conform to the federal practice of observing it on the last Monday in May, but some retain the traditional day of celebration, May 30. National observance is marked by the placing of a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery. Flags, insignia, and flowers are placed on the graves of veterans in local cemeteries.

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• Decorative art, the craft of a painter and decorator.
• An object or act intended to increase beauty of a person, room, etc.
• An object, such as a medal, that is awarded to honor the recipient ostentatiously: see List of prizes, medals, and awards.
• Interior decoration, the internal finishing of a building.
• Name decoration is a technique used in most programming languages.