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In spite of the ample archive of spatial concepts, the profession

of spatial designer is not an easy one to define in the 21st century.

Whereas artistic interventions in space, in whatever form, open up

a reservoir of knowledge produced by social interactions, once coined

relational aesthetics by Nicolas Bourriaud enactments, and other

performance - based phenomena related to the domain of visual art,

the spatial design profession seems to drown in its spatial concepts

without reaching theoretical shores. In other words, both interior

designers and public space designers still lack a generally accepted

and inspiring form of knowledge production.

What, then, could knowledge production and a relevant theoretical

discourse mean for those professional space designers?A phenomenological approach, in the sense of turning to designed

space as such, seems inevitable. But how should one understand

a designed space? Is it a constructed environment, as Parsons New

School for Design claims, in an Art & Education e - flux? Is it bringing

space to life in both interior and exterior forms? Do future theorists

of designed space have to engage in objects connoting space and,

for example, turn to Heidegger and his forms ofZuhandene developed

in his rather dense work Time and Being? Could one even ask space

designers to indulge in that type of philosophical deliberation?

Both

interior designers and public space designers could look at thedomain of visual art for models and inspiration for developing a

spatial design discourse. In that visual domain, theorists, curators,

and artists collaborate in developing a field of artistic research while

scanning exhibitions, trends, and individual works of art. Spatial

design could address similar questions, including: What does

our 21st century designed space, environment, or surroundings

look like? What models of analysis could work in scanning them?

What are the trends in those designs? What are examples of high

quality, professionally excellent designs? How could those three

traces together produce novel concepts, insights and links with

a theoretically inspirational field? These issues echo the initialbackground of the DARE#3Graduate exhibition Spatial Practices

Academiegalerie and Dutch Design Center, August 29 -September 12),

and the Spatial Practices symposium held at the Utrecht Centraal

Museum on September 10, 2008.

3EDITORIAL

Contemporary spatial design and the spatial research linked

to it seem to fan out in all directions. Public space, counter -

space, space of the non - place, interior space, self - managed

space, urban space, found space, spaces of flow, space

of creativity, smooth space, and striated space are just some

of the space concepts that appear in MAHKUzine#6, an issue

devoted to spatial practices. Obviously, practice in this spatial

context refers to activity and action in space not necessarily

performed by consumers of space - although that does not

seem to be excluded in the self - managed space radiating

a Bourriaud ambience but rather by professional designers

of space.

-

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Indeed, spatial design has the capacity to create its own mode of

knowledge production. Spatial research is able to produce a novel field

of knowledge accompanied by a novel conceptual framework linked

to spatial practices. MAHKUzine#6 issue scans contemporary ventures

and explorations in that future field of theory called spatial design

knowledge production. (AWB)!

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5

Afterlast years discussion on The Politics of Design, the third DARE

symposiums title, Spatial Practices, seemed to shift the focus away

from an all-embracing political debate towards specific, pragmatic

and applicable practices. Held at Centraal Museum Utrecht on

September 12th, the symposium presented talks by two artists,

two architects and an architecture theorist. Its central theme was

the potential of spatial research for current cultural practices.

In recent years, the term spatial practice has been used to describe

new forms of interdisciplinary practices responding to the rapid

transformations of the contemporary city and the politics of territorial

relations. Spatial practice describes both the critical analysis of spatial

relations, and various forms of interventionist strategies.

Spatial Practice is a term coined by Henri Lefebvre in The Production

of Space, where he conceptualizes three basic types of spaces: Lived

Space, Perceived Space, and Conceived Space. This model tends

to distinguish among the symbolic meanings enacted in spatial form

lived space), the spatial patterns of everyday life (perceived space),

and space as it is conceived through technocratic acts such as planning

conceived space). Spatial Practice is introduced and described by

Lefebvre as a wider conception of practice superordinate to and

including any form of social practice, be it revolutionary or reformist.By that definition, Spatial Practice denotes any practice that chal lenges

and alters existing configurations of space, based on the assumption

that space is a product shaped by conflicting forces that act upon it.

Though this applies to any of the three above - named categories,

Lefebvre assigns Spatial Practice mainly to the category ofPerceived

Space. It is here, in the space of social relations, of production and

reproduction, and of experiences of daily life, where Lefebvre locates

potential for the projects concerning alternative and counter - spaces.

The construction of such alternative spaces is one objective in the

work of Apolonija Sustersic. Though working within the art context,her projects are often realized in public space, deal with urban politics,

and rely on the participation of the neighbors. Her concept of space

includes social networks, paralleled by economic networks,

from the micro-strategy of a free exchange shop to the analysis

of powerful restructuring efforts like gentrification. The video

and film archive Video Home Video Exchange, realized in 1999

in the Westflischer Kunstverein in Mnster, was a strategy to

motivate the local audience into becoming an active part of their

neighborhood. The act of exchange itself, where visitors could

exchange their private home videos for feature films, stimulated

participation and thus restructured the space of the community.The temporary Community Research Off ice at IBIDProjects in

East London was set up to monitor the process of gentrification

in the local area. It attempted to explore the reasons, processes

and consequences of change within urban development,

DUTCH ARTISTIC RESEARCHEVENT #3

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where galleries and independent art spaces play an increasingly

important role.

Forthe project Garden Service, Sustersic, together with architect

and theoretician Meike Schalk, installed a public art piece along

the Royal Mile, the gentrified center of Edinburghs tourist industry.

They transformed a neglected piece of public land into a garden witha simple trick: a stairway of five steps, installed to span a wall used

to separate the land from the street. Besides the material elements

of the stairs, benches, a table, and some flower pots, Garden Service

consisted of programmed sessions of Sunday afternoon tea talks with

the local inhabitants. The discussions were open to all and turned

the garden into a forum for local initiatives focusing on city planning

and environmental activism.

Staffan Schmidt presented his and Mike Bodes project Off the Grid,

conducted as an artistic research PhD at the University of Gothenburg.

The project put inhabitants of a Swedish social housing estate in

a video interview dialogue with owners of so called off - grid homes

in the Northeastern US. The term off - grid refers to living

autonomously, in a self - sufficient manner, without reliance on public

utility services like the municipal water supply, sewers, gas relectrical

power grid.

The project merged seemingly incompatible experiences: eight

residents in Husby, an immigrant community outside Stockholm,

and eight households not connected to the utility grid, in upstate areas

of New England and New York State. The interviewees were paired

together and handed unedited copies of each others reflections.

The conversations revolved around three topics: travel, self - definition,and community. Both groups despite their extremely different

housing situations consider the immediate living environments as

a tool to define their identities. Self - definition stands out as central:

it is opposed, delayed in its implementation, violated or threatened

still, all participants individually or collectively struggle to uphold it.

The alleged freedom of the off - grid homeowners to control their

environment seems to be the model for the residents of the Swedish

welfare system, too.

AR T I S T I C R E S E ARCH

Both speakers described their work as a form of artistic research

aimed at the production of cultural knowledge. For Apolonija Sustersic,

the experiences generated in various projects add up to a body of

knowledge e.g. about participation methods or communication

strategies that then can be made available for other projects. But at

the same time her projects can be seen as very concrete educational

work, involving local inhabitants in the production of specific

knowledge about their local situation. Staffan Schmidt worked in

the format of a scientific report, applying research methods and

documentation techniques (e.g. interviews) from the social sciences.His project produced a form of artistic knowledge, that is not direct ly

applicable, yet it might change the configuration of imagined spaces

for its participants and viewers.

The idea of research is not a new phenomenon in the field of

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architecture. Research on design methods emerged in the 1960s

and ultimately led to a break with modernist planning ideals.

Architects and designers began to recognize the political

entanglements of their disciplines, and experimented with strategies

of participation, advocacy planning, or community design.

Activist strategies appeared in architecture and approached the urbanpublic space as a field of interventions. A concept that was developed

in this context is Participatory Action Research, a method that

approaches a given situation through research activities, involving

participants and existing local social networks. By combining the idea

of research with the idea of practice, this term might be an umbrella

term for all the projects discussed in the symposium.

Philipp Misselwitz talked about a collaborative research process to

redefine the role of an art institution and its relation to the city in what

he calls a Post - Public Environment. The project, done in collaboration

with Nikolaus Hirsch, Markus Miessen and Matthias Ghrlich,

accompanied the diverse activities of the European Kunsthalle

Cologne during its founding phase in 2005- 07. Since the new

institution did not have its own exhibition space, the relation to its

public had to be rethought, and a concept for temporary exhibitions

in various public spaces was developed. In doing that, exhibition -

making became an interventionist practice and, at the same time

a laboratory for the development and testing of new institutional

models blurring the traditionally static boundaries between institution

and city.

Forthe exhibition project Models for Tomorrow, a range of publicly

accessible sites in urban space were used. The exhibition venues offeredvarious spatial concepts with varying opening times, represented

commercial or public interests, located in the center or on the citys

periphery. The temporary, unstable appropriation of found spaces

for programmatic work opened up a field of possibilities to rethink

the established stable model of a Kunsthalle.

Lukasz Stanek presented comparative research on Nowa Huta, the first

socialist city in Poland, and Spangen, the working class neighborhood

in Rotterdam. He argued that the current situation in both cities must

be understood as post - socialist, since both cities experienced a major

rupture in the late 1980

s

, related to the end of the Keynesian welfarestate system. With the collapse of socialism in 1989, the housing

production in Nowa Huta went quiet, while the economic basis of

the city, its steel production, was suddenly challenged by a globalized

steel market. Spangen experienced a similar crisis a year earlier when

the almost 80 - year old Dutch housing act was dismantled and housing

corporations were allowed to enter the real estate market. Both events

marked a break with collectivist ideas. Collective consumption, and the

supply of housing as part of the welfare system, turned into individual

consumption and homeownership as part of a housing market.

Despite the drastic changes in the last 20 years, Stanek argued,

these post - socialist cities could not be reduced to sociological fossilsnor tourist attractions. Instead, their transformation into neoliberal

structures must be understood as mediated by the experiences

of the local past. The vision of the socialist city, the memories of

the inhabitants, the persistence of the practices of everyday life

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and the material layout of the city still influence and mediate the

restructuring of space in both Nowa Huta and Spangen.

Doina Petrescu from the Paris-based Atelier dArchitecture Autogre

Studio for Self - managed Architecture) pointed out the political

dimension of their spatial practice. Devising micro - urban tactics,

they aim to reconstruction spaces of proximity from the marginsof the capitalist city. As an example Petrescu presented a project

for a community garden in the Paris district of La Chapelle,

which has a large immigrant population. The community garden

and a recently squatted house close by explore the possibilities of

a collectively self-managed space. Using recycled materials and

with the help of many local residents, a vacant plot was transformed

into a space for public meetings for the entire neighborhood.

The process of constructing as a collective experience and the

appropriation of city spaces by inhabitants through participative

activities created a collective subjectivity. That this practice is at the

same time political, social and cultural became evident when the garden

turned into a forum for political debate on local conflicts, e.g. between

community activists and the citys administration.

All projects presented during the symposium shared the fact that

they operated on the margins of the current capitalist production

of space rather than in the center. The situation that Lukas Stanek

observed in the post-socialist environments of Nowa Huta and

Spangen seems to be rather typical conditions in which we currently

work, as architects or artists concerned with spatial transformations.

They are characterized by a dismantling of welfare - state social

security networks, and their replacement by neoliberal demandsfor self - management. The interviewees in Staffan Schmitts video

Off the Grid showed two distinct reactions to that dilemma, both

confirming the neoliberal transformation of space: the dropouts

discount the achievements of the welfare state in order to avoid

its obligations, which they see as constraining their freedom.

The social housing inhabitants, on the other hand, try to achieve

a certain self - definition within the homogenizing welfare state

system.

That raises the question of whether the idea of spatial practice is

necessarily confined to marginality, to peripheral and temporalinterventions. Or might there be a possibility to think and operate

spatial practice as a pervasive practice that could eventually push

the production of space towards more emancipatory models?!

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9

SMOOTH AND STR IATEDSPACEIN ARCH ITECTURALDES IGN

E R I K A JACOBS LORD

ESCAPING THE GRID

What if our everyday spaces were comprised of more than what can

be seen with the naked eye? They would not only appeal to the eyes,

but to the nose, fingertips, and ears. This type of space would

be difficult to define or even lay down in a plan because it cannot

be described in black and white, just as a menu entry cannot define

the define the delicate flavors of a dish, only list them. This space

needs to be touched and lived in, explored with the senses, not only

consumed with a rational eye. It is sometimes an impractical

space because it is for people who, by nature of being human beings,

are not practical themselves all the time themselves. This is a space

that, when it feels like it, reaches towards poetry.

Wolfgang Laibs Wachsraum (1992 ) has these difficult, impractical,

yet poetic qualities. A narrow but tall corridor is lined with plates

of beeswax and lit by a single bare bulb. The honest nakedness of

the bulb contrasts with the rich scents of the beeswax. The walls

glow, but are impossible to render well in a photograph the lighting

is difficult and there is no natural way to get the image in frame.

The space is actually too narrow, too tall without a standard functional

reason. There is only the need to make an extraordinary impression.

To experience it, you have to be there, walk through it, inhale deeplyand run your fingers along the wall, taking in physical impressions

that a reproduction could never give. Unfortunately the Wachsraum

is relegated to a museum. What if it were possible in everyday life

to have a wall worth stroking, or a special room in the house which

is there for the sake of fun or mystery? This essay is about escaping

the grid the grid society sanctions for us, the grid our streets are

laid out upon, and the grid inside the construction of our dwellings.

Ringleaders Masterminds of the escape plan are Gilles Deleuze

and Flix Guattari. Their book A Thousand Plateaus introduced

fascinating new concepts of looking at the world which still inspirephilosophers, artists, and thinkers to delve into concepts presented

in that work. Here I will explore the Deleuzian notion of smooth

and striated space as characterized in A Thousand Plateaus and the

significance it could bring to the physical space of architecture.

Deleuze and Guattaris concept of smooth and striated space is

clarified in a collection of six models, one that is not final but open

to expansion (D&G 1987: 499 - 500). Each model sketches a different

facet of the smooth/striated spatial relationship with a changing

underpinning of the notion of space for each model. Although some

of Deleuze and Guattaris examples of smooth and striated space

involve procedessural change over long periods of time (the tamingof the desert, the striation of the sea), the transition and meeting of

the two spaces can blossom like the unfolding bellows of an accordion,

or burst out in violent fits like the wandering line an erratic heartbeat

draws onto graph paper.

WHENDELEUZEAN DTH EADJECTIVE DELEUZIANAR ECITEDIN THISESSAY, IT IS AREFERENCETO TH EWORKOF BOTHDELEUZEAN DGUATTARI.

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Architectural space, as discussed in this essay, is suspended between

the spatial, aesthetic, physical, and artistic models just as the field

of architecture requisitely crosses into multiple disciplines in order

to be realized. An architectural project may be well-engineered but

aesthetically lacking, like European housing blocks from the 1980s.

Or, it could be aesthetically beautiful but not engineered well, as withthe extension of Terminal 2E at the Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris

which failed due to structural problems. Or perhaps the engineering

was good, but the physical construction process was improperly done

prohibiting the chemical process of curing concrete or good welds

between steel joints. Just as a building cannot be evaluated on just

one of these levels, so must a Deleuzian architectural space contain

or transverse several concomitant models.

Architectural space touches on the Deleuzian technological model

because it is constructed, the maritime model because people travel

in and navigate buildings (the routing of space), the physical model

because architects must respond to gravity, and the aesthetic

model because form and function are inseparable in the practice

of architecture. For the purposes of this essay, architectural space

will be handled as one fluid entity, the smooth and striated

space with which, and within which the (interior ) architect works.

Before discussing architectural smooth and striated space, it will

be helpful to look first at how smooth and striated space is defined

by Deleuze and Guattari in A Thousand Plateaus. At first they define

the spaces only by their relationship to each other:

Smooth and striated space nomad space and sedentary space

are not of the same nature. No sooner do we note a simple opposition

between the two kinds of space than we must indicated a much

more complex difference by virtue of which the successive terms

of the oppositions fail to coincide entirely. And no sooner have we

done that than we must remind ourselves that the two spaces in fact

exist only in mixture: smooth space is constantly being translated,

transversed into a striated space; striated space is constantly being

reversed, returned to a smooth space. [T]he principles of the mixture,

which are not at all symmetrical, sometimes [cause] a passage from

the smooth to the striated, sometimes from the striated to the smooth,

according to entirely different movements.(D&G

1987: 474-5

).Smooth and striated spaces exist neither independently of each other,

nor in any fixed proportion to each other. Movement between the two

spaces is fluid, but does not have to be proportional or controlled;,

that is, it could occur suddenly and violently or creep slowly along.

Deleuze and Guattari use the sea as an example of smooth and

striated space (D&G 1987: 479). The sea was, at first, a purely smooth

space. The earliest nomadic navigation was based on colors, sounds

and noise haptic navigation based on sensory input. As the sea was

gridded, cut into sections like a spherical pie, the space was gradually

striated as the stars were traced in the sky and parallel lines mapped.

Charts and calculations created an overlay system with the intentionsto reveal and dominate. The same occurred thing happened to the skies

once aeronautical space was explored. Once the domain of the birds,

the skies are now striated by the regular crossings of aircraft.

That is not to say that there is no more smooth space inof the sky:

REGULARCROSSINGSOF AIRCRAFT.

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one just has to observe starlings steal it back at dusk, swooping and

swaying along enigmatic and unmappable paths through the air.

Metal birds and natural birds are part of the smooth and striated

whole in continuous mixture, sharing and struggling side by side.

Important to architectural smooth and striated space is the notion

of nomadic line. With this Deleuze and Guattari contrast the line ofso-called primitive nomadic or smooth art close-range, non - optical,

haptic and expressive (D&G 1987: 493) with that of striated art,

which uses distant vision, clear orientation, and central perspective

D&G 1987: 494). Deleuze and Guattari write that Egyptian art uses

a horizon - free close - range visualization while the Greeks conquer

depth and perspective with the use of optical space. Later, the authors

contrast the abstract (smooth) line with the concrete (striated) line.

The line is broadened into a plane, planes expand into the third

dimension. Egyptian art (reliefs as opposed to sculpture ) could be

termed smooth in regards to its treatment of the background plane

no horizon, figures float ), however its rigidity and regularity pulls

it into striated space. At the Egyptian temple in Karnak, massive

carved columns rise in a strict grid. This is the ultimate striated

space, the space of pillars (D&G 1987: 370).

Egyptians built for

permanence, ruled with fear and upheld static traditions which

assured longevity. The gravity and heaviness of the temple building

illustrates the striation of Egyptian culture, however smooth

elements the carved forms floating in space on the columns

are indivisible from the whole.

Roman architecture incorporates more smooth elements in

comparison to other ancient cultures: the curved form of the archplays against the heavily striated Greek architecture from which their

building archetypes were inherited. Yet the arch in its symmetrical

form is still inherently striated.The Colosseum in Rome (finished

80 A.D.) integrates more curved forms than any other known Roman

building, however the arches are balanced in an elliptical grid.

Smooth elements, however, invade Roman villa interiors via the wall

paintings used for decoration. Both the Second and Third painting

styles incorporate smooth qualities.

In the high Second Style of

painting, depicted here on the left from the Villa of P. Fannius Synistor

at Boscoreale(ca. 40 - 30 B.C.

)perspective is used, but it is acentered.Each element implies a different vanishing point, a dislocation for

the eye and shattering of central perspective. The Third Style of

wall painting, represented here by the Black Room of the Imperial

Villa at Boscotrecase ( last decade of 1st century B.C.) tended toward

the surreal abstraction of architectural elements which floating

against undefined backgrounds. Over the evolution of Roman

painting, smooth elements emerge and retreat over time in contrast

to the more clearly striated architectural forms.

Smooth space and striated space did not spring into being emerge by

being written about in the 1980s; the underpinnings and forces have

always been there in some shape or form, covertly or not, as in theexamples from Egypt and Rome. Although it is not possible in this

essay to catalogue smooth and striated space throughout architectural

history, the case of Le Corbusier is particularly interesting. Corbusiers

book, Towards a new architecture and in particular the Villa Savoye

VILLAATBOSCOTRECASE.

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laid out and exemplified his principles of architecture. His design

attitude, like that of many of the Modernists, was based on the

mastery of nature, clean gridded elements which celebrated the

achievements of industrialization. The Ville Radieuse plan of 1930

Frampton 1992:180) was a Modernist and perfectly striated utopia

whose powerful influence still echoes throughout European housingdevelopments today. Yet despite Corbusiers mastery of striated space,

smooth space snuck in the back door, not being the kind of visitor

to knock. Corbusiers paintings made later in life exhibit many signs

of Deleuze and Guattaris aesthetic model: abstract line, lack of clear

horizon, and close-range vision. A smooth Corbusier is wholly present

at the Chapelle Notre Dame in Ronchamp, France (1950 - 55 ),

where

the crab-shaped roof volume sidles up to thick concrete walls to only

float above them. Small windows pierce through the walls, allowing

light to paint an otherworldly sphere. The walls are covered with gunite

Kostoff 1985: 732) or concrete sprayed onto a surface to create a deep

texture which catches and plays with light. Corbusier uses all of these

effects which appeal to the senses in what could be called a haptic

space. The grid, the basis of striated space, is subjugated to make

way for undulating forms, non-orthogonal connection and continuous

figural var iation. Aside from the treatment of the space, the structured

program of Catholic religious space is applied as rigorously as ever,

where the absolutely striated laws of the Church prevail.

The crucial question an (interior) architect might ask is how to take

account of smooth and striated forces in one design model, even if

this is trying to tame the untamable or control the uncontrollable.

Can a space with both smooth and striated elements even be designed,or must by definition smooth space come from outside, stealing in

like a thief at night, rising out of a dark hiding place? One answer

can be seen in the Watts Towers in Los Angeles, California. Here the

artist Simon Rodia did not build to any plan but with found material

and a bottom-up process of local decisions. His ideas changed

during construction, meaning the construction changed during

the building process. His structures adhere to fluid logic yet are

heterogeneously constructed out of steel, cement and various other

debris such as glass, china and broken bottles (Harris 2005: 52 -3).

Rodia built his structures with close-range vision using his sensesto create instead of sitting at a desk drawing plans and sections.

Unfortunately this construction technique is not possible for designers

working commercially, and certainly not for buildings which must

be inhabitable. However, one could ask how possible it is for a designer

the person in control, the One Who Striates to design smooth spaces

into their work, that is, to let the smooth space in.

A number of architects have spent their careers working with methods

to make their work more dynamic by introducing new ways of

designing or changing the role of the architect from God - like figure

to the manager of architectonic elements. Kas Oosterhuis Trans-ports

2000) designed for the Architecture Biennale in Venice is a buildingwhich works like a giant, flexing muscle. The designer may program

the computers that control the building, but in this case external

data transported over the Internet as well as actions of on-site visitors

determine the form or stance of the structure, which in turn may

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be any stage of tense or relaxed depending on all of the variables.

The designer here is not designing the form, but the possibility

of what the form may become.As Deleuze and Guattari state, the act

or the space ofbecomingis, after all, inherently smooth (D&G 1987:

486). The grid in Oosterhuis design has been subsumed into a

mechanical skin which is connected to computers that serves as itssensory input channels. The computer programs written in a rigid

programming language exist in striated space, and the sensory input

and output which cause the changing of the skin occupy smooth space

in this work.

The work of Frank Gehry and Greg Lynn also hovers at the smooth

end of the spectrum. Both architects are known for their work with

the non - standard forms known as blobs.

However when architectural

space is fully striated (such as Mies van der Rohes Seagram building,

New York, 1958) or fully smooth (Gehrys Experience Music Project,

Seattle, 2000) the result can be less than provocative. A mixture of

smooth and striated space and the tension or conflict between them

is not only necessary (they do not exist independently of each other )

but spatially more compelling. UNStudio explore specifically the

mixture of the two spaces in their blob to box model which they

developed for the Music Theater in Graz (1998-2008). Here they

combine the strict technical program of the theater (black box)

with more informal routing created for the milling audience milling

about (blob). The two functions of theater and lobby and are combined

into two discrete programs where movement from striated space

to smooth space is choreographed. However, what happens when

blob and box, the smooth and striated spaces, commingle and stagetheir dance in front of an audience for all to see? The crux of the

matter of smooth and striated space for the designer may just be

in the struggle between the two spaces, where they meet and/or

repel each other and how one traverses into the other.

But to be clear: it is impossible to design a smooth space, just as it

is impossible to design the sea, a desert or the wind as described

by Deleuze in his chapter on smooth and striated space in A Thousand

Plateaus. A translation from the philosophical to spatial context is,

in a strict sense, difficult if not impossible. This is the paradox that

any designer must contend with and resolve for herself. Solutionssuch as Simon Rodias towers address fluidity and flexibility

during the construction process, while Kas Oosterhuis uses precise

technology to make a flexible structure. Corbusiers chapel meanwhile

could be termed a non - optic space that works primarily on a sensory

level. These examples show the open - ended possibilities when working

with the Deleuzian notions of smooth and striated space. While the

mixture of smooth and striated spaces in physical spaces adds another

dimension to design, their presence need never be a goal in itself

but a means of achieving more interesting, provocative work.

Crucial to smooth and striated space, but especially to the designer

thereof, is the manner of transition from one space to the otherand back. Deleuze and Guattari discuss the meeting point of smooth

and striated space with the notion of the clinamen, defined by

Lucretius in the first century B.C. Deleuze and Guattari see the

clinamen as the difference between the straight line and the curve,

KA SOOSTERHUIS , TRANS-PORTS

( 2000 ).

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the smallest deviation, the minimum excess (D&G 1987: 371 ).

They again refer to the clinamen in their physical model of smooth

and striated space: the transformation from striated to smooth space

happens either by declination (the smallest deviation) or by vortical

flow (D&G 1987: 489). Smooth space, the space of contact,

systems of sounds or colors (D&G 1987: 371), occupies this tinyspace of deviation. This is where the action is, the crucial moment

in which one atom veers off in a slightly different direction than

the rest, causing a chain reaction of events to occur, or the genesis

of new forms.

In Lucretius atomist model of the universe, the world began as atoms

falling through the void in what we now call laminar flow.Without

the clinamen, the minimum angle of formation of a vortex, atoms

would not have been able to collide or interact and the world would

not have been able to form (Serres 2000: 6). The vortex brings

development and opportunity for interaction and growth.

Physics has told us that first there was atomic chaos and that

order emerges from disorder, but really it is the other way around

Serres 2000: 27 ). Disorder sets the stage for becoming. It generates,

produces, and evolves. Vortical flow one of the escape routes

from striated space arises out of and returns to laminar flow,

or the flow of sheets of air or water which glide over each other

in vary ing densities. If the parallel (striated) layers are disturbed,

vortical or whirling turbulent (smooth) flow is produced.

While examples of flocking and turbulent flow logically lean towards

chaos theory and the notion of randomness or chance, it is notable

that Deleuze and Guattari, while writing about smooth and striatedspace, do not invoke either of the aforementioned terms or the

language of chaos theory in A Thousand Plateaus. One could

speculate that this was a conscious choice, as chaos theory predates

the text by several decades. Turbulent flow does not imply randomness

or chaos, and neither does the concept of smooth space. Smooth

space may make a dramatic entrance worthy of a self-obsessive diva

or wander in quietly like the mind of an abstracted professor,

but never accidentally.

For a long time turbulence was identified with disorder or noise.

Today we know that this is not the case. Indeed, while turbulentmotion appears as irregular or chaotic on the macroscopic scale,

it is, on the contrary, highly organized in the microscopic scale.

The multiple space and time scales involved in turbulence correspond

to the coherent behavior of millions and millions of molecules.

Prigogine and Stengers 1984: 141).

Turbulence is at once a boon and bane, destructive and constructive.

A spinning top is the vortex in action, stable and instable, order and

disorder at once, indeterminate in its short life (Serres 2000: 30).

Via the clinamen, the minimal angle, the vortex is a mechanism

of escape, growth and (re)birth, a way out and back again, one path

between smooth and striated space.Jumping from Lucretius to Heisenberg and from the atom to the atomic

particle, one step smaller and more elemental, the world of subatomic

physics is even more uncertain than that of Lucretius atom.

Subatomic particles are the nomads of the universe: elusive,

HTTP://HYPERPHYSICS .PH Y-ASTR.GS U.ED U/HBASE/PFRIC.HTML

VORTICALFLOW

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evasive, difficult to find or measure. One doesnt know exactly their

velocity, where (or when) particles are according to the Heisenberg

Uncertainty Principle, but one can predict the probability of where

they may be and how fast they are going (Kaku 1994: 114 ). A picture

from the bubble chamber at the CERN laboratory in Switzerland

shows pi mesons in liquid hydrogen, creating spirals as they decay.

Here the particles shoot violently yet gracefully from a straight

to a vortical path, winding away into new forms at different levels

of energy.

These particles are not just swerving, they are

transforming into a wholly new state.

Let us consider the impact that working in and around the space

of the clinamen has for architectural designers. As discussed earlier,

achieving a truly smooth space may be in itself impossible.

However, architects such as Bernard Tschumi and Rem Koolhaas

have dealt with the issue by interpreting the built environment as

a fluid cinematic experience. Rather than as static object, architectonic

spaces as viewed through a first-person frame of reference are

perceived successively, like scenes in a film. These can be edited

according to artistic vision of the director who choreographs jumps

in time and place and manages the storyline. By viewing space in this

fluid, dynamic way, a layer of smooth space can be grafted onto the

architectonic object even though the object itself may not posses

the qualities of smooth space.

Bernard Tschumi did a series of explicit translations of film form

cutting, jumping, device and counterpoint ) in his Screenplay Series

1978-82). Scenes from films inspire sequences and entire programs

of architecture (Tschumi 1997: 15 ). Beyond this early work, Tschumihas spent years exploring the connections between motion and program

in his work. Just as progression is a necessity within several Deleuzian

models of smooth and striated space, time becomes a key factor once

architecture becomes filmic and processual.

Along with the fascination of time and film in architecture, Tschumi

experiments with and uses in-between space frequently in his

work. According to him, in-between space is activated by the motion

of bodies in that space (Tschumi 1997:21), meaning that only

the movement of users in the space a wholly unpredictable flow

completes the space. His in - between spaces are often literally formedbetween two shells or skins and are, without the attendant users or

program-makers, indeterminate in nature. In my view this connects

again with the notion of clinamen in the sense that a clinamenic

space is where the tide of smooth and striated space shifts.

When applied to human experience, the vortex, the outcome of the

minimal angle, takes on a more sinister quality. When dizziness

or vertigo occurs, the circumferential fringe of vision swirls in on

the perpectival vanishing point in a vortex of potential experience,

like turbulent water around a drain. (Massumi 2004: 325).

Up and

down are confused, the horizon and ground plane seem to rotate as

in a vortex and in some cases the eyes themselves move in circularmotion.(While vertigo is not generally desired as a condition, there

are those that pay for the experience at amusement parks). Vertigo, or

vortical experience, has been designed into architecture as a tool for

transformation through the intentional ungrounding of the user. Two

HTTP://CDSWEB.CERN.CH/RECORD/39474

HTTP://WW W.NEUROLOGYCHANNEL.CO M/VERTIGO/DIAGNOSIS .SHTML

APICTUREFROMTH EBUBBLECHAMBERATTH ECERNLABORATORYIN SWITZERLAND

AVORTEXOF POTENTIAL EXPERIENCE

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examples show this effect particularly well: the Garden of Exile in

Daniel Liebeskinds Jewish Museum (1999), where uneven ground

and tilting columns produce disorientation if not nausea. Lars Spuybroek

uses the vortex as a generative principle of form in his project for an

exhibition space, wet GRID(1999 - 2000). Not only was the structure

produced by interaction of vortices on a set of parallel lines, but by theplacing works of art above, below and around the visitor, imploring

a tilting of the head, an arching of the back and other extreme

positions. Vertigo and the vortex become part of the experience of

space. (Spuybroek 2004: 157). The vortex functions as a manifestation

of smooth space, in feeling or in form. More importantly, it is an

example of how smooth space can be designed via Spuybroeks analog

machine, which produces vortical, vert igo - inducing forms. The vortex,

the progeny of the clinamen, breaks up the grid and instead of

drawing a line between two points, spirals and dances around them.

Dancing brings us back to where the clinamen was first described,

by Lucretius over two millennia ago. The inbuilt contradiction

of turbulence of order that it creates but can also disrupt can

also be found in the language, in the gap between turba and turbo.

Turba is a multitude, confusion and tumult, disorder. The Greek

!"#$%, turb, is also used to describe the mad dancing in Bacchic

festivals (Serres 2000: 28). And there is a difference withto turbo,

which describes the vortical and comparatively ordered movement

of a spinning top, stable even while it leans and sways,

but which only gives an illusion of rest. This is the movement

of the wind, and of water. Lucretius writes of the streaming - chaos

or laminar flow in the void, and the cloud-chaos, a fluctuation ofoppositions (Serres 2000: 30). There is no true rest in Lucretius

universe, but only flow and streaming chaos changed by declination,

the minimum angle, the vortex forming to create and destroy.

The world around us is a flowing, dynamic system, whether

we characterize it by the fall of atoms or the spinning of quarks.

Even on the human scale there is a flow to life, a fluidity that

surrounds us in nature, the seasons, in the path of a life. Yet as

much as science tells us about nature or what we can observe

ourselves, the architectonic objects produced by our culture place

a greater value on static, rigid forms. Architecture is now in rehabafter its long-term addiction to the grid. At the height of Modernism,

and later during the reign of the superstructure, the grid on

the engineers drafting table had thewas in danger of becoming

more important than its inhabitants. By using the notions of

smooth and striated space as tools of analysis and design, the grid

can be mollified. The minimum angle can be set free to spiral away,

dancing towards chaos and back, flowing between layers of smooth

and striated space causing crashing storms or lulling them back

to laminar flow.

CONC LU S I ON

Do not multiply models, write Deleuze and Guattari (D&G 1987:499);

but in this case, Messieurs, I will have to disappoint you. To understand

smooth and striated space in terms of the physical environment

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I must do both multiplication and division. Architects are the ultimate

jacks of all trades. Vitruvius wrote in 27 B.C. that a good architect

must be educated in manual skills, scholarship, history, drawing,

philosophy, medicine, and astronomy, ( though not expected to master

all of them), and today while the required fields of knowledge

have shifted, the generalist approach of the architect remains.

Because the field of architecture touches on so many aspects such

as physics, material technology, social questions, psychology, art

and philosophy, there is not one singular notion of smooth and

striated space which could fit architecture as a whole. Instead, smooth

and striated space simultaneously translates, traverses and reverses

through a varying conglomeration of layers. Architectural space

cuts through this to reveal a brilliantly variegated yet irrevocably

fused cross section of its totality.

The space of action at the clinamen, or the transformation from

smooth to striated space and back, is present on scales from the

subatomic to macrocosmic, yet part of the routine of daily life

which may go utterly unnoticed. When approaching concepts

of smooth and striated space in architecture, the designer can

use the notions of clinamen and indeterminacy to initiate change

within designed spaces. Just as the examples here have shown,

smooth and striated space can be observed at many levels

simultaneously, not as a rigid program but as a dynamic and

omnipresent part of life. Architectural space is thus, in the Deleuzian

sense, the coalescence or multiplicity of all possible smooth and

striated spatial relationships within reach of the project. Designers

are used to working with the directions of the wind and sun, butwhat about birdsong, the scents of cooking food cooking, or the

path the cat takes while surfing sunbeams? Designing a space

based on its smooth and striated aspects can be a source of new

methodologies for approaching architectural space, whether done

as a back room analysis, in a daydream, or as a significant role in

the approach of the designer. In other words, this approach provides

plenty of ways to let smooth space dance around the grid, to escape

it and ricochet back.

Spatial analysis and design only become richer when smooth and

striated spaces are taken into account. Even the design processcan benefit, as many designers have already proven. The mixture

of smooth and striated space exists from site level to details and

materials, but also in the emotional mixture of the spaces, use

of sensoryial elements, variation of long- and close-range elements

and homogenous and heterogeneous spaces. Not all projects may

involve all layers, but in every case the opportunity for playfulness

and variation exists.

!

SOURC E S

Deleuze, Gilles, and Flix GuattariA Thousand Plateaus : Capital i sm and Schizophrenia ,

trans. Brian Massumi

London, University of Minnesota press (1987).

HTTP://WW W.LI H.GR E.AC .UK/HISTHE/VITRUVIUS .HT M

FRANKGEHRYSEXPERIENCEMUSICPROJECT, SEATTLE,US A: NEVERBELIEVETHATASMOOTHSPACEWILLSUFFICETO SAVEUS ( D&G1987: 50 0).

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Frampton, Kenneth

Modern Architec ture : a Cri t ical His tory , 3rd ed .

London, Thames and Hudson, Ltd (1992).

Harris, Paul

To See with the Mind and Think through the Eye:

Deleuze, Folding Architecture, and Simon Rodias Watts Towers,

p 36 - 60 of Ian Buchanan and Gregg Lambert eds. Deleuze and Space

Toronto, University of Toronto Press (2005).

Kaku, Michio

Hyperspace

New York, Anchor Books (1994).

Kostoff, Spiro

A History o f Architec ture , Set t ings and Ritual s

Oxford, Oxford University Press (1985).

Prigogine, Ilya and Isabelle Stengers

Order Out o f Chaos

London, Bantam (1984).

Serres, Michel

The Birth o f Physics

trans. Jack Jawkes

Manchester, Clinamen Press (2000).

Tschumi, Bernard

Architecture in/of Motion

Rotterdam, NAi Publishers (1997).

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WI M M A R SEI L L E

SPATIALSCENARIOS

Since research emerged as an influential factor in art and design,

interior designers have become aware of their poor theoreticalbackground. In 2002, the magazine de Architect devoted an entire

issue to that lack of theory. In the preface, Janny Rodermond

stressed, Nonetheless our educational system lacks a comprehensive

stockpile of information on the history of the interior and on current

developments and assignments. Without such a source and its

ongoing development Interior Architecture cannot shed its stylistic,

ornamental image (Rodermond 2002: 8,16). In the magazine,

the cases presented showed promising practices incorporating

a variety of research methodologies in the process of design.

Yet, there were neither theories as basis nor concluding reflections

to help in developing theory. One could say interior design is based

on the references of case studies like a science of jurisprudence

Van Aller 2003).

The renowned interior design cases seem to merely form a collective

memory of references functioning as standards in practice-based

research. In addition, many interior architects are convinced that

the quality of the interior space is hard to define and even impossible

to photograph. The interior space cannot really be represented;

you have to go there! (Spanjaard 2007). Indeed, the human

experience is celebrated to such an extent in interior design

that representations are considered insufficient and any reflectionon design ideas tends to be ignored. How do interior designers

deal with the lack of a theoretical discourse and research attitudes?

To be sure, the field of interior design contains historical reviews,

topical reflections, magazines full of case studies, discussions

and symposia. However, in spite of all those publications, there

is no general body of texts considered the theoretical basis for the

profession. In the context of their interior design theory reader Intimus,

Mark Taylor and Julieanna Preston state that when investigating

several readers used in art schools and universities, there was a lack

of a common collection of essays for interior design reflection.Initial informal surveys of interior design/interior architecture

and spatial art university programs revealed that not only approaches,

outlooks and pedagogical philosophies differ, but also the scope

of theoretical texts rarely repeat or identify a distinct set of readings,

they claim (Taylor and Preston 2006: 6). All educators seem to borrow

from different disciplines such as geography, sociology, anthropology,

philosophy, and gender studies.

In everyday practice, input for designers and their sources of inspiration

differ greatly and seem to be mainly related to educational background.

Their reference tools, however, seem to be mainly connected to a

design attitude. For example, interior facilitators need an immenselibrary of materials necessary for a design process where

expenses and delivery time are the decisive factors (De Bont 2008).

In conceptual interior design offices, all kinds of visual sources serve

to illustrate the design concept presented to the client. Such visuals

(

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are specifically utilized in design competitions where the designer is

absent at the time of presentation (Hasanzadeh 2008). The variety of

sources of inspiration and reference tools in the interior design field

make it hard to generate a coherent theoretical design discourse.

The scattered picture so far generates two questions. First, is there

an effective definition of interior design?Second, what is in factthe relation between theory and practice in interior design? These

questions are closely related in the discussion on interior design and

the development of a theoretical discourse and research attitudes.

An important trace in the origin of interior design lies historically

in craftsmanship. Since furnishing is made out of different

materials a designer has to coordinate the cooperation of craftsmen.

Boonzaaijer 1985) In the various European countries, other artisanal

traditions have been influential in the profession. In France and

Britain, wall decoration and upholstery were part of the profession,

where the interior designer, or decorator, coordinated the dressing

of space. In Germany and the Netherlands, interior design implied

the coordination of carpentry, so the designer was known as an

Indoor Architect. In Italy, even today, one does not use the term

interior designer; there are only architects or product designers.

As the job of coordination expanded, interior designers started

to distinguish themselves from the practical craftsmen and the

commercial salesmen of interior equipment. Not only did interior

designers highlight their aesthetic and artistic talents, they also

proclaimed a doctrine of conventions for rationalized living and

improved quality of life. The profession of interior design established

associations and foundations promoting those ideals. In theNetherlands, the association Goed Wonen (Good Living) is a 1960s

example of that trend.

Similarto architects, interior designers organized themselves into

professional organizations and devoted much time and energy to

discussing the boundaries of their discipline. The interior designers

position between architect and interior decorator was a difficult

balance. In characterizing interior design as spatial profession,

ornamentation and styling were rejected while an emphasis on the

human scale set the profession apart from the architectural domain.

The formulated competencies for the interior design profession hadto be met by educational institutions. The result was a compromise

in skil ls, knowledge and att itudes aiming at an al l - round profession

for interior architecture.

Today, the organization of indoor space has become so complex

that teamwork is needed, whith the interior designer not always

in the leading position. The professions artistic and aesthetic

approach is no longer sufficient for dealing with commercial,

logistic, economic and organizational factors. The one - way process

from assignment via design to completion must become less rigid,

including a flexible time factor required by economic factors.

The traditional phases of briefing, debriefing, sketch design,final design, contracting, and building are now interconnected,

resulting in a process of propositions and adjustments.

What is the impact of the development of the profession of interior

design on todays need for a theoretical discourse and research

(

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attitudes? In three examples of designers with roots in different

disciplines, I will explore how strategies in design could affect

a theoretical discourse. Marcel de Bont, interior facilitator, educated

as a manager, now designs turn-key offices. (www.huisvesting.nl)

Ronald Hooft, artist designer, has a background in fine art, now

designs avant-garde restaurants together with architect Herman Prast.www.pratshooft.nl ) Herman Verkerk, event architect, educated

as an architect, is now engaged in interior design for the cultural

sector. (www.eventarchitecture.nl )

Interiorfacilitator Marcel de Bont takes the burden of relocating

an office and shows the client step by step which decisions must

be made. The pragmatic agenda implies management and economy,

but hardly generates new insights in the development of a theoretical

discourse for interior design. Artist designer Ronald Hooft has

a reputation of creating a design novelty in the restaurant world.

In a fluent process of creativity, the location is being stripped,

negotiations on kitchen equipment are starting, while design sketches

are still rough outlines. In Hoofts flexible process an overall view is

important. In parts of the sketches we know exactly what it will be;

others are more flexible so they can change over the years. The spatial

quality always should allow change, so you do not have to modify the

construction. In our concept, the way things are attached to another

is important: a floor to a ceiling, or a staircase as a transition area

or resting area. That how what the interior architect is distinguished

from the decorator. (Hooft 2008) Event architect Herman Verkerk

does not propose a set of options, but creates a well - argued optimum

a cycle of acting and checking for reflection. Reality is adaptable;lines in your drawing have multiple interpretations whereas

the amount of contextual information continues to increase,

says Verkerk. (Verkerk, 2008)

These examples show how multidisciplinarity in the field of interior

design results in new approaches to the field. Both the artist designer

and the event architect fully embrace complexity and design in

a flexible and fluent process of propositions and adjustments.

That fluidity of process seems to reflect our current Internet society.

In The Rise of the Network Society, The Information Age: Economy,

Society and Culture, Emanuel Castells develops the concept of spacesof flow. Complexity and fluidity are captured in that 21 stcenturynotion of space. The spatial approaches of designers tend to vary

between fixed identifications of the context to playful embracing

of the fluid complexity. Yet, the developments in the practice of

the profession seem to inevitably progress toward stressing the fluid

and the complex. Such a design attitude could imply a multitude

of fluent perspectives, rearrangements and scenarios. Such shift

in design attitude could be demonstrated by further design practices.

One of the icons of modernism, the butterfly chair by Arne Jacobsen,

illustrates how contradiction, categorization and composition form

the premises of functional design. The chair is divided in its twofunctional parts, a seat and a frame. The design process continuously

optimizes the designated functions. The seat and back ought

to be warm and bendy and thus made of plywood, while the frame

has to be strong and thin, and so manufactured from metal.

(

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Even aesthetically, the categorization continues: the parts are divided

clearly in a distinctive connection; the seats bright colors attract

attention while the frames appearance is downplayed in reflective

chrome. The entire chair is a composition; it is literally constructed

as an idealist expression.

Conversely, 21st century design is not based on functionaldesign, implying the notions of contradiction, categorization

and composition. Today, design instead points to perspective,

rearrangement and scenario. For example, for an ideal home,

designer Hella Jongerius created a collection of layered perspectives

filled with all possible choices of doors, plates, curtains and chairs.

Jongerius color collection for Vitra rearranges historical colors

used by Vitra to which transparent colored sheets are added so

as to increase the number of possible color scenarios.

While the modernists loved to project their ideal on a tabula rasa,

today different perspectives are included as a means to reveal

an insight in the unique case at hand. In this approach, two shifts

are crucial. Firstly, the external spectator has become an internal

participant. There is no longer the wish to come to an eternally

valid analysis; the goal is to arrive at a particularly interesting

option where contradiction shifts to multiple perspectives. Secondly,

mapping the complete design contexts is decisive for arriving at

a new understanding. The design is an attempt to reveal and elaborate

on that understanding of the situation, so the act of design is mostly

a rearrangement of existing facts rather than deliberately constructing

forms following their predominant category of functioning. As a result

the design is a flexible scenario rather than a fixed composition.Lets explore these three characteristics of perspective, rearrangement

and scenario further in interior design practices and see how they could

play a role in a theoretical discourse. In his work, Herman Verkerk

aims at a nuanced reality. Instead of making the design context

abstract, interpreting it rigidly or starting from scratch, Verkerk

analyses the design context as closely and from as many perspectives

as possible. That analysis, however, is not directly connected to

the result. It is a way of getting a well - balanced grip on the case.

Verkerk says, In the end it is a matter of what you take as the context,

what data you accept to work with as a frame. That battle with thecontext is interesting. That is why analysis is so important, because

it provides you with the information to transform a negative or

neutral feature to a positive one. So when there is a repulsive ceiling

at the Coming Soon shop

, I think: Hmm, lovely, an ugly ceiling.

The modernist characteristics of contradiction, categorization and

composition are still present in the design process but no longer play

a dominant role. Streams of notions go beyond contradiction;

categories are created in a fluent way, and compositions appear

in a dynamic setting. The optimum and nuanced reality Verkerk

works with is an attempt to create a specific context. Perspective,

rearrangement, and scenario as characteristics of a topical designattitude are only partially incorporated. Many perspectives are utilized

to arrive at a nuanced image of the context. Processing the information

is based on rearrangement, such as observing and drawing in

photographs, observing and reorganizing the photos. But the action

HERMANVERKERK, COMINGSOON, ARNHEM.

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to make a design is closer to a composition than to a rearrangement.

The result is not so much a scenario but as Verkerk calls it an optimum

to formulate a new coherence of many distinct aspects.

Interestingly, in Verkerks work, the alternation between analysis

and design slowly moves toward a proposal that can be considered

both as analysis and design. As a consequence, rearrangementand composition are interrelated. Though pure rearrangement

would stick to the components at hand, and strict composition derives

from additions in an empty setting, Verkerk works slowly towards

an optimum, a best possible compromise arranging components

as the design context requires. In so doing, he adds information

coherently to arrive at a nuanced reality. An added layer unifies

the complexity of interests. Flexibility is integrated in the design

result, but since it is not explicit, as in a combination of scenarios,

the insights into the particular design process are hard to grasp.

An analysis of the design attitude, however, reveals the crucial

points of attention, motivation and interpretation.

Ronald Hooft celebrates complexity in another way. When he introduced

the case of his famous design for the Harkema restaurant

, he did not

talk about an aesthetic concept but started listing an immense amount

of data, making it absolutely impossible to brief the commissioner.

You cant get a shark tank is the office slogan. Hooft does not try

to solve the design puzzle in its totality, but works step by step

defining the crucial points of tension. For a new restaurant, he does

not make plans, just a sketch, to be able to talk about the atmosphere.

If Id made a computer drawing right now, the client would think

there was already a design, while the crucial point at the moment isto see if the kitchen supplier can do 70 cm less to create space needed

to improve the route to the toilets. What Hooft actually does is set

up a complete arrangement in his mind and then decide what parts

have to be adjusted to create a clear design. Multiple perspectives,

rearrangements, and scenarios all play a role in the design process.

In addition, design aspects imply function, logistics, routing,

atmosphere, materials, colors, acoustics, commerce, legitimation,

and graphics, and a host of other criteria such as commercial profit,

wellbeing, and critical awareness. When we view Hoofts interiors

as artistic installations, the complexity, the critical visual formof the design, and the decisive details become crucial.

Thus, designers do have particular ways of approaching the design

context, and use various perspectives, rearrangements and scenarios

to enrich the given context. It is interesting to see how Herman

Verkerk has no preset ideal in any design context, but looks for unique

cultural value, whereas Ronald Hooft creates a piece of work where

space and experience are integrated. Could one conclude that the

three notions of perspective, rearrangement, and scenario indeed

are strong analytical tools and could act as a starting point

for producing a theoretical discourse and a research attitude?

Unfortunately, in the design processes discussed, perspectivesare not strictly mapped in a rearrangement. The design result as such

is complex and enriched by layers of information. A representation

of the design will bring forth new interpretations and force the design

to produce another process of discourse production.

RONALDHOOFT, HARKEMA .

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Verkerk has collaborated for years with photographer Johannes

Schwartz in an attempt to create a significant representation of

his oeuvre. Coming Soon Arnhem provides images properly framed

to exclude the building parts that would spoil the illusion (Coming

Soon Arnhem 2007). Schwartz manages to give an interpretation

of the design implying the concepts in his two-dimensional art andcreating compositions that form a new critical reality (Verkerk 2008).

Verkerk says, I was at first shocked by the butt - naked character,

but it sure is distinctive! And I am fond of the drawings that go along

with it. They give a representation of the design in another way.

It remains difficult though, reproduction.

Hooft accepts that his interiors do not easily reveal his intentions

and simply starts a new chapter with replaying the former.

The concept does not come across so well, it is a manifestation

that the consumers get in magazines. But we are flexible while

creating and can make something more decorative, or gloomy,

or clear. We can be very diverse but as soon as you have made

something people want that particular style signature. It takes

more time to give a proper representation. Now we are doing a hotel

and were asked to make a plan straight away. But it does not have

any significance when you do not analyze and investigate all

parameters, the program of demands. So instead we guide the

commissioners through a completed work of ours to show we are

capable to handle complexity and organize space satisfactorily.

So, the prints are in the magazines but we like to walk through

the real site instead and tell about the organization, and the complex

information and work a designer needs. You have to convey that,otherwise people do not understand why you ask so much money.

In both Verkerks and Hoofts design processes, representation is

another layer to the work as a new translation directed by the chosen

medium. Would stricter pursuite of the process of perspective,

rearrangement and scenario give more coherence?

To test the possibility of a design process where the forms of design

derive more directly from an analysis, I initiated a workshop at the

Utrecht School of the Arts. The workshop, called Fullness, intended

to explore to what extent it would be possible to make a design based

directly on the analysis of the context

. To begin, students were trainedin how to handle data in a complex design context by mapping

the appearance from different perspectives. Next they were asked

to design a staircase in a particular classroom. As an investigation,

they made a model of the existing design context taken from

a particular perspective. Crucial at this point was that the entire

phenomenon was taken into account from a specific perspective.

If the perspective was, for example frames, then all phenomena

were assessed on their framing quality. In this way, the mapping

of the design context revealed hidden qualities, and students were

amazed to see the diversity of models produced by one and the

same existing design context. After the distinctive interpretationof the reality of the space, the design was simply a continuation

of the chosen visual means used in the mapping.

How can this study be significant for the development of a theoretical

discourse? Two phenomena are striking: mapping of data is an

WORKSHOP, FULLNESS.

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illustration of a mental attitude as such; and interpretation is clearly

evident in the design outcome. An academic case bears the advantage

of simplification. In such an assignment, aspects can be neglected

although they are inescapable in reality. The challenge of the application

of a mapped design process would be to investigate the possibility of

preserving a selected perspective in the final interpretation.Would such a mapped design process more easily generate a

theoretical discourse and a research attitude? That is tempting

to assume. The design result is directly based on the interpretation

of the context, and the analysis is mapped in a communicative and

intelligent visual. However, the production of a theoretical discourse

in the field of interior design depends on a variety of factors whereas

the daily practice of interior design does not necessarily feel the

urge to partake in it. Yet, notions such as perspective, rearrangement

and scenario offer at least a toolkit for the start of both a research

attitude and an theoretical discourse based on forms of analysis.

CONC LU S I ON

In an exploration of current positions in interior design, I have tracked

various contexts, developments and influences that could affect the

production of a theoretical discourse in interior design. Generally

speaking, a theoretical discourse in interior design and a related

research-based attitude are badly articulated, although the desire

to be part of them is widely expressed. In this study, I came across

a number of viewpoints, each with its own background, interest

and validity. Let us summarize them and see how they could producea sound conclusion with a future vision for interior design and theory.

From a purely theoretical viewpoint, there is a wish to arrive at an

investigation of the history of interior design. A categorization could

serve to produce a vocabulary in generally valid terms, strengthening

the profession and signifying its specific qualities. This wish, however,

seems to be based on a modernist understanding of the practice of

interior design, where reflection can only lead to a body of theory

initiating good practice. In particular, architecture manuals, with

their typologies and standardized measures, have served as a toolkit

for modernist design. Interior design did not generate a similartheory, perhaps due to its wish to operate in a more human or artistic

mode. Now that design practice is no longer oriented towards preset

ideals, recapturing such a theory seems quite outdated.

How then could a body of theory and a related theoretical

discourse be created? Topical theoretical texts on interior design

could be selected and interrelate to one another. The reader

Intimus mentioned above is an example of this. Two factors make

such an endeavor difficult. There is hardly a heritage of manifestos

or reflections by interior designers and the textual sources of

inspiration are very disparate. So far, no editor has had sufficient

authority to launch a general accepted reader on a theoreticaldiscourse in interior design. Well - known architects or interior

designers such as Rem Koolhaa or John Pawson, took a better

chance in composing an inspirational book with a selection of

texts and images.

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