Universities are focusing on the students’ needs as a part of interior space elements in the designing processes. However, these needs related to the design of the environmental and formulating systems. Students prefer a comfortable interior space for movement and social activities. Therefore, comfortability should be considered in the design process of the educational building, especially for students’ space. The study observed the negative space in the buildings of the University of Mosul, which students lost the healthy relationship between the open and interior space in Students’ space. The gathering points inside and outside buildings is the focus of the current study. Therefore, the problem statement is “There is a gap in the design processes of the interior space that provides a comfortable students’ space”. Therefore, the main research question is “What are influencing factors of the designing and adaptive reuse processes of the interior space in the university buildings”. The research aim is “to identify the important factors that influence students’ needs in the educational building at the University of Mosul”. A quantitative approach applied by using questioner and measuring instruments to collect data from selected case in the University of Mosul. The triangulation of the data shows the importance of direct connection between the exterior and interior space. Besides, the availability of green area, green elements, and comfortable area in the exterior and interior space are the important factors as results showed. Partially, the majority (81%) of the students preferred a free space that can students adapted to space.

The interior design of the Islamic style in traditional cites included tangible and intangible influences, which organized the interior space according to the needs of the users and following the rules of Islam as a religion and cultural values. The quality of the interior space referred to the three points, the Rules, Elements, and Factors. However, the designers face difficulties in designing an interior space within the Islamic style. The studies in the Islamic interior design show the elements and components of the style, but few of these studies analyze in depth the quality of this style, especially, heritage houses. The research question of the current study is “What are the original components, rules, and factors that reflect the quality of the interior design of the Islamic style”. The aim of the study is to identify these components, rules, and factors as a guideline. The study used a mixed methodology; the qualitative mode used the in-depth interview with experts selected by purposeful sampling technique. While the quantitative mode used a checklist to observe the visual analysis of the interior space of the selected buildings. The selected building was chosen under special criteria depending on the heritage value and availability of information. The results showed that the quality of interior design reflected by the level of the details of the interior elements. However, 72% of the samples reflected the originality of the design. The quality of interior space in traditional and heritage houses in old Mosul City related to the details of the interior elements, such as materials.

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