Reflections on Thinking Inside the Box 2007

In March 2007 the Interiors Forum Scotland, in collaboration with the Lighthouse, Scotland's Centre for Architecture and Design, Glasgow, hosted a unique two day international conference. The unifying theme of the conference was: Thinking Inside the Box: New Visions, New Horizons & New Challenges. The event included presentations from keynote speakers, researchers and industrial & academic practitioners, an accompanying exhibition and published interior reader in November 2007. An international audience from the UK, Australia, Italy, New Zealandy, USA, Turkey, Netherlands, Norway and elsewhere contribited to an intense two day conference. The IFS also collaborated with the UK Interior Educators Council and contributed to the developing educational agenda along with international guests from interior research organisations from the USA, Australia, New Zealand and Scandanavia. Conference presentations were divided into simple themes, and the conference abstracts are available here. The programme included a brief introduction from the Interiors Forum Scotland, followed by the first of two keynote speakers; a double act between co-authors Graeme Brooker and Sally Stone, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. From Organisation to Decoration. The programme for day one explored the theme of What is Interior Design? Conference contributors were:

Suzie Attiwill, School of Architecture and Design from RMIT, Melbourne, Australia. What's in a Canon?

C. Thomas Mitchell, Indiana University, USA and Stephen M. Rudner, Streetview Group Inc, USA. Interior Design: Identity Crisis, Rebranding the Profession

Lynn Chalmers and Susan Close, University of Manitoba, Canada. But is it Interior Design?

Teresa Hoskyns, University of Brighton, UK. Not Cushions and Curtains

Tara Roscoe, STUDIOS architecture and Pratt Institute of Art and Design, Department of Interior Design, NYC, USA. Immaterial Culture: The Interior Environment Repositioned

Patrick Hannay, Cardiff School of Art and Design, UWIC, UK. A Regulated Irregularity

Lois Weinthal, Parsons The New School of Design, NYC, USA. Towards a New Interior

Andrew Stone, London Metropolitan University, UK. The Underestimation of the Interior 

 
The second stream in March 2007 explored 'Why do we do Interior Design'? The contributors were:

Dr Gini Lee, from Louis Laybourne Smith School of Architecture and Design, University of South Australia, Australia. Curatorial Thinking: the Performance Space and Interior

Gennaro Postiglione and Eleanora Lupo, Politechnico di Milano, Italy. Interiors as Space Rewriting: The Centrality of Gesture

Mark Burry, RMIT University, Australia and Mark Taylor, Victoria University Wellington, New Zealand. Hertzian Space: Surface and Substrate

 
The second day introduced the second Keynote Speech which sought to offer an important counterpoint to the first days papers which had demonsrated a strong research and acdemic bias; Shashi Caan offered a very direct practice perspective to the event;

Shashi Caan, Shashi Caan Collective, NYC, USA. Interior Design Confusion and Consensus

 
The third stream examined When? Histories and Herstories of Interior Design. Importnat contributors in this section were:

Luis Diaz, University of Brighton, UK. Towards a Participatory History

Charles Rice, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia. For a Concept of the Domestic Interior: Theoretical and Historical Challenges

Terry Meade, University of Brighton, UK. The Enclave and the Interior

George Verghese, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia. Sensual Space

John Brown, University of Calgary, Canada. The Tailored Home

Jim Hamilton from the award winning multi disciplinary design practice Graven Images, Glasgow 

Saltuk Ozemir, Istanbul Technical University, Turkey. The Mask Outside the Machine

 
The final stream examined methods, approaches and processes affecting 'How Do We Teach Interior Design? With presentations from:

Ro Spankie, Oxford Brookes University, UK. Drawing and Making: Digital and Analogue: Space/Object, Examples of Good Practice

Jose Bernardi and Beth Harmon Vaughan, Arizona State University, USA. Teaching Interior Design Studio based on a Collaborative Process, Social Embeddedness and Sustainable Design

Julia Dwyer, University of Brighton, UK. Across/Between: Art into Design

Lorraine Farrelly, University of Portsmouth School of Architecture, UK. Translation and Representation of Interior Space