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Department of Design and Merchandising
College of Health and Human Sciences

Design and Merchandising Technology Spec Guide

Interior Architecture and Design Technology Spec Guide

Updated August 2023

This technology guide refers to needs from the 2nd year on in the IAD Program.  As a pre-IAD first-year student you will not need a high-performance computer for interior design work until you advance into the IAD major in your second year.

IAD faculty, students, and staff review these computing recommendations annually to ensure that recommended computing systems and software meet curriculum requirements. It is not advised to purchase your high-performance studio computer until the 2nd year, as the IAD program’s recommendations may change with software and technology upgrades. All of the software used in the IAD Program is installed on the desktop computers in the RDC Computer Lab and Gifford Lab, so software purchases are not required.

Our current advice for laptop purchases includes the following minimum requirements and guidelines:

Should I utilize my existing computer? 

While a laptop is not required, IAD students have found that having a personal laptop that can run the required software offers them more flexibility in how and where they work without having to rely on the computer lab.

NOTE: In order to run the software required in many of the IAD courses, your computer must meet or exceed the system requirements to run the software required in your 2nd year interior architecture and design studio and technology courses. We do not advise purchasing or building a PC that does not offer warranty service and support. The faculty will not be able to troubleshoot students’ personal computers.

Should I purchase a Mac or a PC? 

In order to be able to run and use the design software, the IAD Program recommends purchasing a Windows-based computer.  

This is largely due to the fact that Autodesk Revit does not run directly on a Macintosh operating system. This means that students who choose to purchase MAC computer will be responsible for configuring their Apple device with virtualization software (Parallels / VMWare) or with Bootcamp (Please note, Bootcamp is not compatible on Arm-based Apple devices) to allow the use of Windows environment; additional cost will be needed for virtualization and Windows licenses.  However, this is the student’s decision to make, and students will be responsible for ensuring the computer’s compatibility, installation, and configuration as per Autodesk Revit requirements.

What are the hardware recommendations?

Processor: Latest multi-Core Intel i-Series, Xeon®, or AMD® equivalent with 2.5 GHz or Higher as a minimum requirement and 3+ GHz processor as recommended.

Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 / Quadro RTX 4000 or AMD equivalent (eg. Radeon RX 5700 XT) or better

Memory: 32GB or higher is recommended

Hard Drive: SSD (Solid State Drive) storage of 1TB. Note: High-resolution images or 3D files can take considerable disk space where 250GB of space might not be enough. Program Revit ver. 2024 requires 30GB of free disk space; see manufacturer recommendations.

Display: 1920 x 1080 (higher resolution recommended but might impact performance. Note: Revit 2024 4K monitor is the maximum supported resolution).

Pointing Device: External mouse. You cannot effectively navigate Revit without a mouse.

Other: Consider purchasing the following:

A second mobile monitor.

3-year warranty / protection plan.

System Requirements for Revit and Enscape:

Please refer to the following links for system requirements necessary to run Revit and Enscape:

What software will I need? 

During your time in the CSU Interior Architecture and Design Program, you will be required to use and are encouraged to explore using a variety of design software solutions.

  • Students can get free one-year educational access to Autodesk products and services, renewable as long as you remain eligible. This includes access to Revit, AutoCAD, 3ds Max, and more.
  • Industry-leading real-time visualization plug-in for Revit, Enscape.
  • Adobe Creative Cloud; 20+ desktop and mobile apps including Photoshop, Acrobat Pro, Lightroom, Illustrator, InDesign, XD, Premiere Pro, and more.

All of the software used in the IAD Program is installed on the desktop computers in the RDC Computer Lab and Gifford Lab, so software purchases are not required.