interior urban activism

urban interior activism is a design studio in interior design at the school of architecture and design, rmit, melbourne, australia, in semester 1, 2010. our context and space of investigation is the public space of the city. within this studio we explore the role design could play in setting up new relationships between people and spaces, and people and people. we undertake different actions, including the creation of encounter through conversation, the active occupation of space through play, and the creation of disturbance through installation. we investigate how we can interact with people in public space. through those actions we develop an understanding of public space and people through ‘action research’ or as i like to call it ‘active design’. This mode of explorations puts us right in the center of activities, testing ideas in real life conditions. we learn as much about others as we learn about ourself being in the world. the studio asks you to forget almost all the conventions you have learned about design and understand design as a process and an activity, rather than a product and a static outcome.

the final outcome of the design studio will be to ‘design’ another ‘action / activity’ for and in public space. you will need to be actively engaged with space and/or people, in order to change the atmosphere of this public space. the atmospheric aspect of the design studio is what makes this  rather dubious studio a design studio in interior design. interior designers are spatial practitioners, we shift our field of operation from the interior into the exterior and focus on the space that is most relevant to us, but unfortunately often neglected, the public space (the place we share with others in public).

here you have the opportunity to see some of the student projects, as well as most of the studio portfolios