New Oklahoma Registered Commercial Interior Designer Law

On May 10, 2021, Governor Kevin Stitt signed into law a new version of the Oklahoma State Architectural and Registered Commercial Interior Designers Act, which went into effect on July 1, 2021.

Highlights of the changes to the law include:

• The title "Registered Interior Designer" changed to "Registered Commercial Interior Designer."
• The Board is now comprised of six Architects, two Landscape Architects, two Registered Commercial Interior Designers, and one public member.
• Registered Commercial Interior Designers now have a seal that they may use to seal technical submissions, excluding fire and life safety systems, for nonstructural interior construction for the Code Use Groups listed and defined in 59 OS, section 46.21b, unless prepared under the responsible control of an Oklahoma-licensed Architect, and signed and sealed by that Architect.

Important new definitions:

• "Commercial Interior Design" means the rendering of or the offering to render designs, consultations, studies, planning, drawings, specifications, contract documents or other technical submissions and the administration of interior construction and contracts relating to nonstructural interior construction by a registered commercial interior designer in a new constructed or existing building when the core and shell elements are not going to be changed; OS 59, 46.3 (17)
•  "Nonstructural Commercial Interior Construction" means the construction of elements which do not include exterior components of a building such as exterior walls, any load-bearing wall, any load-bearing column or any other load-bearing elements of a building essential to the structural integrity of the building such as wind loads and seismic loads and to any element which must be designed for wind loads and seismic loads; and OS 59, 46.3 (18)
•  "Fire and Life Safety Systems" means those systems and construction that pertain to fire and life safety protection, such as fire sprinklers, fire alarms, smoke evacuation systems, fire walls, fire barriers or smoke barriers as defined by the current International Building Code adopted by the Oklahoma Uniform Building Code Commission. OS 59, 46.3 (19)

For a full version of the new law, please look at the Oklahoma State Architectural and Registered Commercial Interior Designers Act. Check out our FAQs page for answers to questions concerning the changes.