Jinoh Park Brings Real-World Focus to Interior Design Education

Long before he was teaching design, leading graduate programs and shaping research at the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design, Jinoh Park was fascinated by something completely different: film.

Growing up in South Korea, Park imagined a future behind the camera, inspired by cinematic worlds such as Jurassic Park and Titanic. He was drawn to storytelling, special effects and the way carefully crafted environments could shape emotion and experience. In many ways, that fascination never really went away but rather evolved into a different form of design.

Today, as an assistant professor of interior architecture and design, Park creates those same kinds of immersive experiences using space, material and human connection.

Park did not set out to study design. Like many students navigating South Korea's highly competitive college admissions system, his path shifted based on opportunity. He enrolled in the interior design program at Hanyang University, initially unsure if it would be a long-term fit.

That uncertainty did not last.

Park began interning after his first year and continued working through each semester. By his third year, he had co-founded a company with peers. After completing ROTC service as a lieutenant in an engineering battalion, he expanded his experience across South Korea and Europe, contributing to more than 100 projects and helping complete more than 50 built works.

Those experiences grounded him in the realities of design: constraints, timelines, budgets and client expectations. They also sharpened his ability to deliver — to make decisions quickly and effectively within complex conditions. But over time, a new question emerged.

"If I had become skilled at creating design that could generate commercial value," he wondered, "could I also dedicate my work more directly to public value and social responsibility?"

That question led Park to broaden his perspective beyond practice alone. He pursued an M.B.A. to better understand development, strategy and value creation, then continued into doctoral research to explore how design can serve people more meaningfully and responsibly. Today, his work sits at the intersection of practice, business and research — a combination that shapes both his teaching and his scholarship.

Over the course of his career, Park has worked across scales, from architecture and planning to furniture, product and service design. While each field has its own language, he found that many of the forces behind decision-making remain the same.

"Different fields may emphasize materiality, geometry, atmosphere, systems or branding," Park said. "But in practice, many decisions are shaped by a common set of forces: the client's goals, the available budget, the value of time, team capacity and the larger network of projects and constraints surrounding any commission."

That realization simplified his thinking. Rather than focusing on design language alone, he began asking a more direct question: What is actually good for people in this situation?

Applying Theory in Real-World Design

Park joined the Fay Jones School in August 2021, drawn by the opportunity to teach interior architecture and design as a fully realized discipline. In his teaching, he emphasizes clarity, applicability and purpose. His courses are grounded in projects that connect directly to real-world conditions, rather than abstract or purely conceptual exercises.

"I value imagination, but I also want students to understand how ideas meet real conditions," Park said. "I want students to develop work they could truly use, build, communicate and carry them into practice."

That approach reflects a larger teaching philosophy built on connection, theory, research and application. Park often translates lessons from practice into structured frameworks, then tests and refines them through teaching and research.

"For me, theory is not something distant from design," Park said. "It helps us understand why a design decision matters. Research helps us examine whether our assumptions are valid. Real-world application tests whether a design can actually perform under pressure."

After more than a decade of teaching across undergraduate and graduate programs, Park has learned that design education cannot remain static. It must respond to a world shaped by shifting economies, evolving technologies and new professional expectations. That has meant adapting his approach over time.

Early in his teaching career, he encouraged students to pursue broad, even global opportunities. During and after the pandemic, he placed renewed emphasis on material experience, ensuring students maintained a strong connection to physical space despite the rise of remote work. Now, as artificial intelligence becomes increasingly integrated into design workflows, his focus has shifted again.

"No one can predict the future with certainty, so I try to equip them with multiple tools, adaptable habits of mind and enough confidence to keep growing under changing conditions," Park said. "It comes from a mentor's responsibility: you want them to succeed, but you also want them to become strong enough to navigate uncertainty on their own."

While teaching and research are central to his work, Park continues to engage with professional practice. He is exploring how his practice can continue in the United States, bringing a new perspective from his academic role.

Now, he is not only interested in practicing design, but also in developing processes and knowledge that can be shared, tested and expanded. Park said that teaching plays a major role in this process. Student questions and ideas challenge him to refine not only what he creates, but why he creates it.

Park's global experience continues to influence his thinking. Time spent working and learning in Europe taught him that design is shaped by culture, values and expectations. Rather than searching for a single "right" approach, he emphasizes careful reading of conditions before design begins. That pre-design phase, he said, is one of the most critical parts of the process.

It is also why he resists imposing his own stylistic preferences on students. Instead, he focuses on building structure and guiding them as they develop their own ways of thinking.

"It would be easy to produce students whose work reflects my preferences, but that is not the kind of educator I want to be," Park said. "I would rather give them structure, sequence and meaningful assignments that help them build their own ways of thinking."

Finding Balance in the Future of Design

In his research, Park is particularly interested in how environments shape human experiences such as memory, cognition and wellbeing.

His work explores questions that bridge qualitative experience and quantitative validation, including post-occupancy evaluation and evidence-based design. Through collaborations and grant proposals connected to organizations like the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health, he is working to better understand how people respond to spaces.

"For me, design research is valuable because it helps us move from intuition alone toward a more rigorous understanding of why certain spaces support learning, memory, wellbeing and performance," Park said.

When asked what he hopes students carry with them, Park emphasized the idea of process. He wants them to understand how to define direction in pre-design, develop and refine ideas, and communicate and implement them in the real world. He also wants them to recognize that this cycle repeats, and that repetition helps designers begin to understand their own identity and judgment.

For Park, the future of design education is all about balance. He sees opportunity in new technologies, interdisciplinary collaboration and expanding research. But he also believes strongly in the importance of depth and clarity within disciplines. Without that, it becomes easy to chase trends without developing a true center.

Park's advice for students considering a path that combines professional practice and advanced research is clear: start with experience.

"My first advice is to become good at practice," Park said. "Earn trust. Develop skill. Experience the pressures and realities of actual work. There is great value in becoming genuinely competent before trying to theorize too quickly from a distance."

For Park, his journey has included business, doctoral research and, now, neuroscience.

"The reason I keep studying is ultimately simple," he said. "I want better design to exist in the world. Whether I produce it directly or help others produce it, that remains the goal. Continuing to learn is part of how I pursue that responsibility."

Read the full Q&A with Jinoh Park.