IDAN’s Guide Expo 2016 Celebrates Indigenous Interior Design Options

Home grown; home inspired is the theme of the Fourth Annual Interior and Design Expo – GUIDE 2016 organised by the Interior Designers’ Association of Nigeria (IDAN), amidst the seemingly global trend of looking inward, what with Brexit induced by the similar sentiment.

With IDAN clocking over seven years as the professional body regulating interior design practice in Nigeria, it has become more auspicious now to make a statement intending for Nigeria to command a pride of place on the global market through its exquisite indigenously inspired products. This has to happen in style assured the IDAN President Ms. Titi Ogufere, who recalled in a media chat how challenging it had been for the pioneering members including about “80 per cent suppliers of interiors and 20 per cent designers, who had had to study interior design abroad” as the course yet was alien to our educational institutions back home.

“The struggles we have are in education, infrastructure, funding and sometimes the government with some of its biting policies. We’ve made progress no doubt, given where we started, but we still have a long way to go. Most people have to create things not because they want to, but because they can’t find what they need to buy,” added Ogufere.

Unlike Architecture, which has long been entrenched in the Nigerian educational system, Interior Design struggles to become established “here to give architecture a soul as it is practiced in developed countries” she further explained, while stressing that “this year’s Guide expo will focus on not just African design, but more of designs emerging from Nigeria.”

Hence, starting from July 6 till 8, at the Landmark Event Centre, Lagos, GUIDE will unveil its plethora of innovative diversified products for homes and offices, plus such professional services as design clinics placing potential clients in the hands of some of the country’s best interior designers on free consultations.

The all-inclusive event will also offer a seminar series available to registered visitors, to consider several select contemporary topics that engage broad concerns and interests of designers, manufacturers, clients and students, even as it “affords interior design practitioners in Nigeria the opportunity to showcase their products” said the IDAN Vice President, Mrs Ifeyinwa Ighodalo, who has been in the industry for about 30 years.
Ighodalo in addition, remarked the forthcoming design expo as drawing its intentions of very word ‘Guide’ coined from ‘gida, uno, ile’ all three words in Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba languages of Nigeria respectively meaning ‘home’. “The idea is that we need to look inward.

Our homes obviously have to do with our culture, and you can’t neglect culture in our homes. Thus, this 4th year is actually going back to why we came up with the name in the first place.” With “The theme… Home Grown; home inspired; we are pushing and inspiring more designers to do things that are culturally sound; things that have to do with Nigeria where we’re from, using materials that are locally found and easily accessible.”