Urban Interiors: A Retroactive Investigation

Deborah Schneiderman and Amy Campos eds., Interiors Beyond Architecture (Routledge, 2017), 2018

Inspired by the discourse of urban interiors, this essay explores the ways in which concepts of interiority have structured the design of urban space from the mid-1960s until today. Beginning with two seemingly oppositional models - the urban living room and the urban surface – it introduces a series of contemporary examples in which concepts of interiority continue to contribute to the creative and innovative design of urban space. About the Book Published in Deborah Schneiderman and Amy Campos eds., Interiors Beyond Architecture (Routledge, 2018). Interiors Beyond Architecture proposes an expanded impact for interior design that transcends the inside of buildings, analysing significant interiors that engage space outside of the disciplinary boundaries of architecture. It presents contemporary case studies from a historically nuanced and theoretically informed perspective, presenting a series of often-radical propositions about the nature of the interior itself. Internationally renowned contributors from the UK, USA and New Zealand present ten typologically specific chapters including: Interiors Formed with Nature, Adaptively Reused Structures, Mobile Interiors, Inhabitable art, Interiors for Display and On Display, Film Sets, Infrastructural Interiors, Interiors for Extreme Environments, Interior Landscapes, and Exterior Interiors

Multiple Perspectives on Interiority, 2018

Paper presented at [in]arch conference - THE STORIES OF INTERIOR Multiple Perspectives on Interiority, 30-31 January 2018 Universitas Indonesia, Jakarta. This paper addresses the current emphasis on interiority in the discipline of interior design with a particular focus on the urban environment. The Situationists are a much-cited precedent for this line of thinking; their constructed situations aimed to ‘provide a décor and ambience of such power that it would stimulate new sorts of behaviour, a glimpse into an improved future social life based upon human encounter and play’ (Sadler, 1998, 105). In the twenty-first century, the relation between interior/exterior, interiority/exteriority continues to be a critical topic in relation to the question of inhabitation. The philosopher Gilbert Simondon’s concept of individuation offers a different way of thinking about interiority from one which is premised on the subjectivity of the individual. He writes of the individual as a product of individuation where movement and temporality, change and contingency are foregrounded; inverting individuation as something produced by the individual. This moves interior design from phenomenological and psychological frameworks, which centre the subject and work from the inside out, to an ecology of subjectivity and entertaining the potential of the production of interiority as a ‘subjectification isn’t even anything to do with a “person”: it’s a specific or collective individuation relating to an event (a time of day, a river, a wind, a life …). It’s a mode of intensity, not a personal subject’ (Deleuze, 1990, 98–9). Urban + Interiority, a workshop held in Nicosia, Cyprus I was invited to lead as part of the 10th IMIAD (International Masters of Interior Architectural Design) Workshop – Inhabiting Nicosia: Interior Strategies for the Public Realm – is a key project discussed in this paper. Keywords: individuation, urban, exteriority, Deleuze, Guattari

Inside the City Conference, 2018

This paper discusses the potency of ‘activeness’ in urban-interior designing, as a way of re-imagining and re-inhabiting urban interiors and the potential of this as an evolving interior typology of pedagogy and practice. It will do this through a critical discussion of a recent studio taught at RMIT University, ‘Now Space’ which centred conceiving and actualising a series of ‘now’ spaces (immediate interior designs) within Melbourne. Drawing on Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s ‘Body without Organs’ the studio positioned the designer as a productive part of the urban interior apparatus, and their designs a moment of temporal intensity within the rhythm of the everyday. Students approached design through the immanent possibility in sites, the potency of themselves as urban interior designers and the power structures expressed in the location of their designs. Engendering the ‘active’ at a pedagogical level allows students to develop a sense of agency with their designing, while giving them the agility to engage with an expansive forward-looking discipline. At a discipline-level an ‘active’ approach to urban interior design, has both advantages in a neoliberal-entrepreneurial context of practicing design and the contradictory notion that being ‘active’ is in and of itself, an ‘activist’ mode of practice for interior designers, and can be used as a critique of that very context. The paper will then situate ‘now spaces’ (immediate interior designing) within a broader vision of the urban interior and how this is distinct within other modes of speculative urban practice due to its intersectional potential between the actual and the imaginary through actualised (compared to proposed) outcomes and the complexities of this mode of practice moving from first-person-designer to folding into the rhythm of the everyday collective public imagination.

Academics, research students and practitioners are invited to submit design research papers and critical project works that make a contribution to the discipline of interior design/interior architecture through an engagement with the provocation of URBAN + INTERIOR for the IDEA JOURNAL 2015. Co-editors: Luciano Crespi (Politecnico di Milano, Italy) Davide Fassi (Politecnico di Milano, Italy; Tongji University, China) Elena Enrica Giunta (Politecnico di Milano, Italy) Belén Hermida (Universidad CEU San Pablo, Spain) PROVOCATION Unprecedented movements of people, growth in population density and forces of capitalism and globalism shape the twenty-first century urban environment and transform how people live in the world – spatially, temporally and subjectively. In the disciplines of interior design, interior architecture, architecture, spatial design and urban design, one encounters the coupling of the conditions of ‘urban’ and ‘interior’ with increasing frequency. Urban interior, interior urbanization, urban interiority and urban interior design are used as provocations for designing, teaching and writing – researching and thinking – in cities and cultures as diverse as Milan, Madrid, Melbourne, Jakarta, Austin, London, Stockholm, Bangkok, Singapore and Bogotá. While some might see this as the bringing together of vastly distinct conditions and scales, the conjunction – urban and interior – seeks to engage the potential of practices and techniques of disciplines concerned with interior and urbanism in new ways involving multi-scalar, multi-cultural, multi-discipline approaches. A rethinking of the concept of interior is invited where the defining characteristics of enclosure, form and structure are opened to other possibilities than an equation with the inside of a building. ‘Interior’ is introduced here in an expanded sense. A thinking differently about urbanism and the concept of ‘urban’ is also invoked. The question of, and conjunction of, urban + interior is a critical one in the contemporary context where the inhabitation of urban environments and cities has exceeded the population living in rural areas. We are keen to explore this condition through actual proposals, scenarios and solutions that address the challenges, as well as historical, anthropological, sociological and epistemological reflections. The aspiration for this forthcoming issue of the IDEA JOURNAL is to gather this emerging trajectory composed of practices, techniques, and genealogies for future practice. With our call for submissions, we have not specified research questions or positioned in advance what, how, when or why ‘urban’ and ‘interior’ are/might be connected. Our strategy is to be open to what comes in and from this make an arrangement of connections where the potential of urban + interior can be grasped, offered up and discussed. The conjunctions, conversations and debates have already begun. The editorial approach for this issue of the IDEA JOURNAL is different to the individual guest editor of previous issues. Five people from three cities are already in discussion about this emerging trajectory of urban + interior: Suzie Attiwill from Melbourne and the research group Urban Interior Laboratory; Davide Fassi, Luciano Crespi and Elena Enrica Giunta from Politecnico di Milano – Design Department and Belén Hermida from University CEU San Pablo in Madrid – who are co-directors and co-coordinators of [MUID] the International Master in Urban Interior Design, a program that is offered between POLI.Design in Milano and University CEU San Pablo in Madrid. And now we would like to invite others who are researching urban + interior – through design and projects, through historical and theoretical research, through teaching – to contribute and participate!

In the context of the rise of ecology as science, there is increasing interest in emphasizing the importance of the role of ecological urbanism in ensuring the continued conservation of natural resources and the surrounding built environment. This has long-term impacts on designing the interior and exterior spaces of sustainable buildings. However, it is a bit of a dilemma to describe the primacy of interior space as a new medium of urban order, and how it reflects the needs of urban inhabitants according to the way of living and working in a circumscribed set of values. The research is to redefine the mutual relationships between the concept of urbanism and interior space, not only, for delivering a sustainable building system, but also, for creating spaces that people will value and that allow them to connect emotionally. This also means that the traditional character of spatial organization will tend to be less private and thereby the spheres of the private and the public will penetrate each other. The emerging theory of landscape urbanism is evidence of these overlaps and a number of architectural styles now demonstrate a respectful relationship to the natural environment. The research concludes by visualizing how the interior space can be oriented along the idea of ecological urbanism in which new processes and artifacts can find their application in this correlation.

in IDEA JOURNAL 2009 Interior Territories: Exposing the Critical Interior. Queensland University of Technology: Brisbane. ISSN 1445/5412. pp. 52-61., 2009

Formed in 1996, the purpose of IDEA (Interior Design/Interior Architecture Educators Association) is the advancement of education by encouraging and supporting excellence in interior design/interior architecture education and research within Australasia; and being the regional authority on, and advocate for interior design/interior architecture education and research.

One building standing alone in the countryside is experienced as a work of architecture, but bring half a dozen buildings together and an art other than architecture is made possible. Several things begin happen in the group which would be impossible for the isolated building. We may walk through and past the buildings, and as a corner is turned an unsuspected building is suddenly revealed. We may be surprised, even astonished a reaction generated by the composition of the ground not by the individual building. Again, suppose that the buildings have been put together in a group so that one can get inside the group; than the space created between the buildings is seen to have a life of its own over and above the buildings which create it and one's reaction is to say "I am inside it" or "Law Entering it".

[...] it deals with interior architectural design that is a key topic in architectural practice even if it is a neglected subject in most schools of architecture nowadays as “interior design is often misunderstood as only a kind of decoration”. On the contrary, as Prof. Chen Yi states, “we believe that interior design and architectural design were indistinguishable since the beginning of the civilization”. As a matter of fact interior space is “the space enclosed by walls, wherever they are arranged or configured. It is primary and characterizing of every architectural work, it is addressed to the fruition by whom it is going through, crossing or stopping; […] it has a meaning clearly distinct from that of the other figurative arts…”. [...] this publication deals with Chinese architects from Tongji and it looks forward to deepening the cultural relationships between Chinese and Italian architectural debates that also is one of the aims of the editing this book series. Before expressing an opinion about the published projects in the book I think that it must be understood the social, economic and social context that generated them.

World Heritage and Legacy Forum, 2019

The conservation of heritage buildings can include a wide range of approaches but existing theories recommend reuse of buildings, which ensures the continuity of their life. On the other hand, proposing a sustainable and compatible use necessitates the continuation of the buildings’ cultural significance. In this perspective, the role of interior architecture is extremely important as it provides an authentic interaction between users and spaces. So, reuse proposals need to integrate existing buildings to contemporary life by considering all spatial aspects that contribute to their architectural identity and cultural significance. In this sense the conservation of interior envelope and interior elements of cultural significance rises as a very important issue to be discussed. Thus today the conservation practice and reuse proposals focus on preserving the architectural envelope of buildings rather than interior aspects. Conversely, interiors need specific safeguard not only due to their cultural significance but also because they are the most “volatile” part of the architectural heritage, being closely connected to the real life of users. This paper aims to discuss the dialectic relationship between interior environments of heritage buildings and users, and the importance of preserving internal elements as communicators of cultural significance.

Iconarp International J. of Architecture and Planning, 2020

Public spaces in the context of everyday life in an urban environment include all places with public access and public use. Places for public interaction provide the greatest amount of human contact. In every city, many interiors are considered public because they are of or pertain to the people in everyday life. As part of public spaces, public interiors have an important role in creating place identity. In an urban environment, place identity is defined by meanings as well as the elements of setting, activities, and events taking place within that environment. This paper aims to reveal the interiority attributes and elements of public interiors to determine how they influence the identity of interior places. This understanding clarifies how this differs from the more general concept of place identity in public spaces. Design/Methodology/Approach To do this, a framework for identity was constructed with three components: physical setting, activity, and meaning, based on the main theoretical perspectives of Relph (1976) and Montgomery (1998). To determine the relationships between the interiority indicators of public interiors and identity, this case study focused on Kızlarağası Inn, a historic inn in İzmir, and its immediate surroundings. Data concerning the components of place identity were collected through archival research, observations, on-site documentation, questionnaires, interviews, behavior mapping, and tracking. Findings The analysis of the attributes and elements of place identity in this public interior indicated that the interiority of public spaces can play a positive role in increasing place identity. Moreover, the evaluations revealed the effect of internality in each component of place identity. Features like welldefined boundaries, closeness to human scale, volumetric properties, legibility, the potential of promoting a wide range of activities, and promoting a different sensory context stem from the internality of place. Social/Practical Implications This study emphasized the importance of public and urban interiors as significant places that facilitate public life. Moreover, it showed the extension of interior spaces outside the buildings, which emphasized a new perspective for interior architects and urban designers by bringing a new understanding of the interiority.

2017

This paper chronicles the evolution of Interior Architecture through the lens of the Interior Architecture programme at Oxford Brookes University. Interior Architecture as a proper academic field originated from architecture but with a specific scope-to investigate and design the experiential/spatial conditions of buildings. This led it to be influenced significantly by other disciplines in regard to methodology, pedagogy, and even the subject matter of the programme. Whereas naturally it shares most of its critical framework with architecture and interior design, and draws upon similar theoretical contributions and practices, Interior Architecture incorporates findings and methodologies from other disciplines such as behavioural psychology, social studies, and research on perception. It has now consolidated into an independent academic field, able to offer significant insights on design strategies for people in the built environment, which can be applied meaningfully back into architecture studies. Specifically, Interior Architecture at Oxford Brookes has placed the experience of space as the subject matter in the built environment through innovative design briefs, and academic publication. The design work and research produced by its students and staff is turning into a compressive methodology of design. This incorporates the idea that programmes of occupation are a-priori design strategies, conducted with an appreciation of variable spatial conditions and perceptive atmospheric qualities.

MONU

At this time when realism supersedes pipe dreams as the primary mode of urban imagination, pipe dreams have become realities. Market based development is not always punctual (discrete projects on discrete land) - it is also proliferative (multiple projects melding together). Buildings expand, gather and connect without regards to some of the conditions that kept them apart. Once contained by property lines or infrastructure, the interior now has occasion to grow without bounds. The following is an account of two such events that started in the 1960s and have yet to fully conclude. With both an expanding network of regional shopping malls and a web of central commercial developments linked by a bridges and tunnels, the interior has grown to become an endless type of urban form.

interiorsforumscotland.com

ON ARCHITECTURE — CHALLENGES IN DESIGN Proceedings, 2023

The text problematizes pedagogical methodologies in education in the field of Applied Art and Design, through the connection with fields of Architecture and Urbanism. As a link, a common subfield, urban design is recognized as a framework for connecting scientific and artistic methods, through the need to develop new methods and techniques of professional production of space that are able to generate multi-layered and sustainable solutions within specific social, economic and institutional circumstances. An integral approach implies combining the creative potential of urban design with a more socially conscious and responsible approach in order to develop more efficient techniques through dealing with the concrete space and urban problems in Kragujevac. The complex methodology that follows this approach integrates experiences from the domain of architecture and urban projects, emphasizing the importance of the research dimension in planning a space with a unique identity and a specific atmosphere, whether it is urban planning, architecture or interior design. The paper shows the applied experimental pedagogical approach implemented in the 2020/2021 school year of Master's academic studies at the Interior Architecture study program at the Faculty of Arts and Philology, University of Kragujevac. The pedagogical approach and the proposed student projects are not based only on problem solving, but on a research-oriented approach, which explores the possibilities and limitations of the development of urban units, by training students for their evaluation, which enables a better understanding of the local context, which leads to the adaptation of work methods and creation of more adequate proposals for interventions.