Interiority

This study investigates the Shishinden, the principal ceremonial hall of the Kyoto Imperial Palace, as a site where spatial hierarchy, ritual movement, and material atmosphere converge to construct a unique form of interiority. Rather than treating the hall merely as a stylistic or historical artifact, the paper analyses how interior experience is actively produced through embodied ritual practices, symbolic spatial organisation, and sensory orchestration. By focusing on the interaction between architecture, politics, and cultural cosmology, the study demonstrates how the Shishinden functions as an affective interior that communicates imperial authority and sacred order. The findings contribute to contemporary interiority discourse by highlighting how ritual space can operate as both a physical and symbolic system of meaning.

The work of Norman Foster, often labelled as 'high-tech,' is renowned for its structural expressionism and technological rationalism. However, it is grounded in the conception of a unified whole in which science, technology, and the humanities are inseparable facets that shape both human beings and the spaces they design and inhabit. This article analyses the correlations between the new paradigms established by neuroscience and the design principles of Foster's architecture: the integral conception of reality, optimisation, and energy balance (homeostasis) as survival factors guiding decisions, and the role of perception, emotions, and feelings in the creation and evaluation of architectural and interior design solutions that lift the quality of our lives. This interdisciplinary approach rediscovers Foster's architecture and interior design within a visionary underlying framework of belief and subjectivity, driven by collective narratives and material practices that, through design, intimately connect energy transformations with human happiness. In this convergence are science, technology, sustainability, art, ethics, aesthetics, and happiness, understood as a non-separable unified whole. From this research, an interpretative framework is proposed that repositions technologically advanced architecture within studies of interiority and subjectivity, highlighting its transformative impact.

Hong Kong's dense urban environment, constrained housing, and relentless tempo of everyday life create a context in which solitude is both scarce and valued. This article develops the concept of solitary interiority to capture how moments of solitude in public space generate interiority as a relational condition through the interplay of bodies, atmospheres, and cultural norms. Drawing on ethnographic interviews and multisensory experiential reflection, the article demonstrates how solitary interiority arises from the blurring of boundaries between the domestic and the urban, the self and others, and the private and the public. Individuals extend certain home-like qualities into public spaces, mobilising everyday objects and tacit sensory strategies to negotiate personal boundaries while remaining socially proximate in dense urban contexts. At the same time, solitary interiority operates as a subtle form of urban resilience. Rather than emphasising the qualities of the spaces themselves, individuals frame solitude in relation to urban rhythms and situational transitions, including what they have just endured and what awaits them. Solitary moments offer a vital pause amidst work demands, crowded transport, noisy streets, and the anticipated lack of privacy in cramped domestic environments. In this sense, solitary interiority is both a spatial and psychological quality, enabling urban dwellers to negotiate and build resilience amidst the pressures of high-density urban life.

The disciplines of interior architecture and interior design operate within a world characterised by constant changes. Projecting the future of the interior requires an understanding of how the discipline and practice can manoeuvre exquisitely within such complexities. It calls for design scholarship that promotes resilience as a key condition for responding to constant changes. The interior demonstrates resilience through its capacity to sustain culture, humanistic values, and local sociospatial practices, allowing it to navigate the dynamics of global flux. A call for interior resilience presents an opportunity for interior practices grounded in humanistic and cultural approaches to address uncertainties, instability, and alternative trajectories. This issue of Interiority highlights a series of inquiries and approaches to establish resilience through humanistic and cultural perspectives on interiority. They highlight the interior as a lived environment that manifests changes, sociocultural dynamics, and embodied experiences. They demonstrate the possibilities to produce interiority that promotes the built environment’s resilience, enhancing interior practice’s role toward social and cultural responsibility.

This study examines space modification in one-bedroom-plus condominium units in Bangkok, focusing on the relationship between Generation Y’s characteristics and how they adapt interior layouts to suit their lifestyles. While previous research has addressed flexible housing in general, few studies have focused specifically on how Generation Y modifies space within condominium units to accommodate their needs in the Bangkok context. The study analysed 7,596 one-bedroom-plus units developed in Bangkok and modified by 44 architectural stakeholders to reflect Generation Y's preferences. Using function, partition, and floor indicators, and applying k-means cluster analysis, six spatial modification approaches were identified: open-space layouts, functional space redistribution, comprehensive space reconfiguration, selective partition reconfiguration, integrated bedroom and multifunctional room, and flexible space division. These approaches reveal patterns in how Generation Y negotiates openness, privacy, multifunctionality, and regulatory constraints. The findings contribute to interiority scholarship by demonstrating how Generation Y residents in Bangkok actively shape one-bedroom-plus condominium units to balance openness, privacy, multifunctionality, and regulatory limits. These insights inform flexible residential design that supports ongoing reconfiguration without compromising building integrity, offering guidance for residents, developers, and policymakers towards resilient, user-centred urban living.

Historic interiors are unique repositories of memory, yet conventional reuse practices often fail to grasp their cultural complexity, prioritising formal interventions over lived experience. Dominant strategy-based frameworks for reuse struggle to capture the incremental, user-led adaptations that define these lived interiors. This paper addresses these limitations through a case study of the community-led revival of Harat al-Aqr, Oman. Methodologically, it reframes Alexander et al.'s (1977) pattern language as an interpretive lens for analysing the incremental evolution and embedded cultural intelligence of lived interiors. The research synthesises subjective narrative writing with analytical patterns, revealing that the significance of such spaces lies in their ‘livedness’ and the interconnected network of user-led spatial practices that exist within them. The patterns identified, such as Living Roof, Expanded Dwelling, and Mutual Dependencies, are presented as a way to capture and embody this user agency and cultural logic tangibly. The paper thus concludes by advocating a new approach to interior reuse, especially in environments that have undergone incremental changes or vernacular adaptations. It proposes a shift from imposing preconceived strategies to first interpreting the logic of existing use patterns, thereby offering a more responsive approach to engaging with historic interiors as living environments.

How the interior environment affects autistic people has been studied in settings such as education and healthcare. However, significant work has not been done in evaluating the effect of prison interiors on autistic inmates who may be hypersensitive, especially to light and sound. The purpose of this study was to determine how autistic inmates cope in a noisy, crowded environment that is not designed for them and that they cannot control. This qualitative research used grounded theory to interview five autistic inmates at a medium-security state prison for men in the US to find out their lived experience in prison. Through successive rounds of coding, dominant themes emerged from the data. Findings were that sound, light, and crowded situations beyond their control adversely affected autistic prisoners. Conversely, some found comfort in the routine of prison life. The implications of this research are that prison designers should consider providing more control over lighting, sound mitigation, and a retreat space for autistic inmates. This exploratory study expands our knowledge of how prison interiors adversely affect autistic inmates. It underscores the importance of future research into designing environments that support the needs of autistic individuals beyond education and healthcare settings.

Rural houses form a significant part of the rural architectural heritage, showing the region's lifestyle in their spatial organisation, types of spaces, and interior furnishings. This study examines the spatial characteristics of rural houses in Çamlıhemşin from the perspective of ecosophy, Guattari's (2005) approach of emphasising the reciprocity and intertwining of social, mental, and environmental ecologies. The impact of living culture on the spatial organisation and residential usage norms within the dwellings was evaluated and elucidated through an analysis of data gathered from on-site surveys, relevant literature, and archival scans. These data are interpreted according to the different characteristics and operational values between Turkish houses and the Çamlıhemşin houses in the Eastern Black Sea. These disparate points uniquely characterise the region from other regions, which are considered differentiation points. These interlocked ecologies define a dynamic structure that forms the formal and operational characteristics of the region. While the geographical characteristics of the region determine the environmental ecology, abstract values such as the social structure, collective beliefs, worldview, lifestyle, and perception of privacy are the elements that shape the social and mental ecology of the rural architecture of Çamlıhemşin.

This article examines how interior spaces in the digital age have evolved into flexible, adaptive environments shaped by technological mediation and shifting everyday practices. Focusing on smart homes and home offices, this article introduces the concept of flex-spatiality to describe how these spaces continually reconfigure in response to changes in needs and digital interfaces. Grounded in Gregory Bateson’s (1972) theory of play and fantasy, the study explores how interior spatiality operates on two levels: as a locus for expressing identities and as a structure for organising social interaction. Through Bateson’s distinction between metalinguistic and metacommunicative functions, flex-spatiality is framed as a dynamic process where spaces both reflect and shape relational life in recursive ways. A central concern is the challenge of obsolescence, as accelerated technological change limits the long-term adaptability of interior spaces. Such a challenge produces tensions that affect spatial use, social relations, and everyday rhythms. Adopting a post-disciplinary perspective that bridges anthropology, habitat, and spatial theory, the article refers to fantasy as a generative force for reimagining how we inhabit and make sense of interior settings. Ultimately, flex-spatiality provides a framework for understanding interior spaces as active participants in the ongoing negotiation of identities, interactions, and social transformations.

After the Second World War, manufacturing plants were no longer needed for wartime production levels, prompting the closure and repurposing of industrial facilities that became obsolescent overnight across the United States and in the manufacturing region of Southeastern Michigan. Located twenty miles west of Detroit, the Willow Run airfield in Ypsilanti was one such case. Best known for the massive B-24 Liberator manufacturing plant designed by Albert Kahn that opened in 1942 as Air Force Plant 31, the airfield played a key role in ending the war. Just to the south, a Kahn-designed hangar was loosely repurposed in 1946–1947 as a provisional passenger air terminal. A second renovation began in 1955, when the Airlines National Terminal Service Company (ANTSC) commissioned the firm of Yamasaki, Leinweber and Associates (YLA) to complete interior renovations to keep airlines from abandoning the airport in favour of the newer, larger, and more proximate to downtown, Detroit-Wayne Major Airport. Led by project architect Manfredi Nicoletti under the direction of Minoru Yamasaki, the renovation centred on a ceiling of suspended plastic coffers that created a spectacular backdrop against which passengers prepared to take flight. Even as the project came to fruition, it was clear that the future of the air terminal had already passed, and its eventual obsolescence was inevitable. Despite the project’s shortcomings, the interior renovation of the hangar-turned-terminal sheds light on the repurposing of large, flexible buildings and the employment of formal experimentation in the postwar United States.

Although the courtyard was not a central element in the early stages of the Modernist movement, it later became a key transitional space between the interior and the exterior. This concept was reinterpreted in Spain through a balance between modernity and tradition, particularly in holiday homes along the Costa Brava. This research explores the role of the outdoor room in modern Mediterranean architecture and its relationship with the environment, using José Antonio Coderch's Rozes House as a case study. Through redrawing, the text aims to analyse how the 'outdoor room' in Rozes House enhances spatial continuity and strengthens the relationship between architecture, inhabitants, and the landscape. It helps to restore the identity and memory of the place through spatial solutions that respect both the landscape and tradition, reaffirming its power as a catalyst for a fulfilling way of life. As an essential design tool, the outdoor room transforms the domestic space by integrating nature and enriching the inhabitant's experience.

This study addresses the gap between knowledge of adaptable design and the socio-spatial practices within the interior spaces of contemporary domestic settings. The aim is to support the sustainability of residential environments by enhancing the adaptability of dwellings to changing and diverse home life needs. Consequently, this paper delves into design features that enhance the adaptability of interior domestic spaces, informed by everyday family homemaking processes. Through a case study of the Tyneside flat, this paper illustrates challenges of transitioning this flat from Victorian to contemporary family home. Drawing on data gathered using multimodal methods, the findings demonstrate homemaking tactics and adaptable design features enhancing this transformation process. The paper concludes by highlighting the importance of contextualising adaptable design to accommodate ongoing socio-spatial negotiations occurring within the interior space of the home. It posits adaptability as crucial for supporting the quality of home experience, emphasising its ethical significance in architectural practice and decision-making processes.

Interior design has traditionally prioritised human experiences, often neglecting ecological and nonhuman perspectives on interiority. This anthropocentric focus limits the discipline's ability to address the spatial and sensory needs of nonhuman persons, including teleost fishes. It overlooks interiority as a universal and relational phenomenon shared by all living beings. This research challenges these boundaries by proposing a biosemiotic framework that integrates the body, interiority, and inhabitation as interdependent constructs shaped by physiological, mental, and environmental interactions. By developing Jakob von Uexküll's (1982) biosemiotic schema, the study investigates the sentient experiences of teleost fishes to establish interiority as a capability inherent in all life forms. It argues that interiority emerges not from constructed spaces but as an affective state shaped by sensory perceptions, environmental affordances, and the organism’s internal state. The case study on Betta splendens demonstrates that fishes exhibit spatial awareness, sensory agency, and dwelling behaviours, which underscores their capacity for interiority. This research extends the theoretical foundations of interior design by framing interiority as a shared ecological and physiological process rather than an exclusively human construct. It advocates for inclusive design practices that consider the lived experiences of nonhuman persons by challenging designers to create environments that foster well-being across species. By broadening interior design's scope, this study contributes to a more ethical and ecologically attuned approach to designing for inhabitation.

The idea of interior as an ecosystem views the emergence of interior as a dynamic and relational environment. Rather than viewing the interior as a static or enclosed environment, the ecological perspective considers the interior as an ecosystem, constructed by the systems of relations that involve a multiplicity of actors and entities. This issue of Interiority presents the emergence of various interior occupation and adaptation models that have emerged as an integral part of the ecosystem. The collection of articles in this issue presents a range of cases, ranging from traditional, modern, to contemporary lifestyles and contexts. The works demonstrate the ecosystem involving various actors, both human and non-human, across cultures and time periods. They represent the acts of responding and manoeuvring within the ecological entanglement. They illustrate how interior is not merely a backdrop of living but dynamic agents that keep evolving and transforming within the dynamic ecologies.

Since its publication in 1942, Camus' The Stranger (L'Étranger in French) has captivated readers and scholars alike, sparking a wealth of critical analysis and interpretation. However, the novel's minimalist descriptions of interior spaces have often been overlooked in academic discourses, making it a perennial subject of further scholarly inquiry. This study seeks to decrypt the interiority of this text by examining the absurdist architectural symbolism and dissecting the spatial elements embedded in its narrative. The aim is to unveil new layers of meaning in the protagonist's internal psyche and existential condition. Through close reading and thematic analysis of relevant passages, salient elements will be identified and examined for their evocative significance. Insights from existentialist philosophy, particularly Camus' (1942a) theories on the absurd, inform the interpretation of architectural motifs in the text. The analysis reveals that elements such as Meursault's apartment, the courtroom, and the prison serve as emblematic representations of existential themes of alienation, detachment, and the absurdity of human existence. The minimalist descriptions of these spaces underscore Meursault's emotional detachment and his struggle to find meaning in a seemingly indifferent world. The spatial isolation experienced by the protagonist mirrors the existential loneliness and societal alienation central to Camus' philosophy. The study highlights the relevance of architectural symbolism in conveying complex existential concepts.

This paper argues for the critical role of collective drawings as a form of representation that highlights the open process. The open process of collective drawing involves actions performed by multiple actors and actions that are not limited to producing drawings together but also require the expression of ideas. Collective drawing encourages negotiations among fragments of the drawing, which opens up various possibilities of representations within the interiority discourse. Exquisite corpse drawings made by Surrealist artists occupy an influential position as drawings produced via an open process regulated by the internal mechanism, manifesting as a continuous act of drawing. This study on exquisite corpse drawings is conducted by dissecting the drawing fragments and examining how the head–torso–feet relationship is negotiated within them. The study reveals that layers of negotiation among fragments represent how the collective act of drawing works. This finding contributes to expanding the internal logic and system of a collective drawing process, allowing diverse interpretations and articulation of the representation works.

The critical role of fragments in spatial discourse stems from the complex relationship between fragment and whole. The paradox of fragments offers a deeper understanding of how our architecture, interior, and urban systems are constructed by the presence of fragments and whole and, more importantly, by their interrelationship. Understanding fragments is more than just understanding them as independent spatial entities; it establishes knowledge of how fragments are constructed, connected, and negotiated. This issue of Interiority presents a collection of inquiries on fragments within various everyday interior contexts and representations, demonstrating the emergence of spatialities that celebrate interconnection possibilities beyond the independent parts. The articles in this issue present inquiries into fragments, demonstrating the role of fragments in constructing relationships, building narratives and layers of interconnections, and establishing deeper meanings in various interior phenomena and representational media.

This study explores the profound impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on soul surfers, individuals for whom surfing transcends mere sport to embody a spiritual, psychological, and physical communion with the sea and ocean. The pandemic’s restrictions, which limited access to the sea, challenged the core of soul surfing practices, prompting surfers to seek alternative means to sustain their connection with the sea and ocean. Through qualitative research, employing phenomenological analysis, theories of affordance, symbolic interactionism, and interpretive interviews, the study examines the transition from a natural exterior to a built interior, adapting their living spaces to maintain their surfing identity, rituals, practices, and the re-creation of their sacred space that was once the sea and ocean. The study also examines the philosophical implications of identifying as a surfer when physical engagement with the sea is obstructed, highlighting the enduring nature of the soul surfer’s identity beyond the physical act of surfing. The findings reveal a shift towards an inward spiritual and psychological practice, where meditation, mindfulness, and physical training within the confines of their homes served as a bridge to the oceanic experience and a renewed sense of their interior affordances. This adaptation underscores the resilience and creativity of soul surfers in preserving their deeply rooted bond with the sea despite external disruptions. Conclusively, the study offers insights into the dynamic relationship between soul surfers and their sacred spaces, illustrating how the pandemic has reshaped their practices and, by extension, their identities.

Emergent domesticities have generated new forms of urban life that have dissolved the historical duality between the home and the city. Last century's gender revolution in Western societies, together with contemporary technologies, has affected how people organise their daily lives. Everyday time has replaced typological space, blurring the lines between reproductive and productive activities and consequently affecting private and public spaces and how we live together. Pre- modern dwellings consisted of spatial spaces in which a few pieces of furniture were used to carry out everyday activities and were replaced in 18th-century bourgeois culture by spatial devices organised into 'room.' Defined typologically according to modern concepts such as intimacy, domesticity and privacy, as opposed to the public sphere, room has now become a political tool to challenge the status quo. This article focuses on a renewed understanding of the kitchen as the appropriate element to showcase emerging ways of life related to architecture, gender, and the city, which coexist with the prevailing model of capitalism. The text aims to highlight the shift from a model based on relationships of social reproduction to a (counter-)model relying on caring and collective interactions that can contribute to the unfinished process of gender equality and social justice.

This study aims to investigate environmental interiority and urban conditions which promote adaptations of nodes as foci of place in the historic, suburban waterfront community. Nodes, existing as strategic places as public activity settings, on the other hand, have been barely examined in terms of the dynamic transition of interior places among urbanisation. The study argues that nodal adaptations taking up dynamic development play crucial functional roles in sustaining a waterfront community in connection with the implementation of place resources and accessible opportunities of new transportation networks. Nodal adaptations lead to the emergence of new functions and place identity in the community. This study employs multiple case-study methods to examine adaptive nodes in suburban waterfront communities along Klong Om-Non in Nonthaburi Province, Thailand. The study finds that nodal adaptations can be categorised into communal, cultural, and commercial nodes. Roles, place resources, and potential accessibility to communities contribute to the variation of nodal adaptations. Nodal adaptations are associated with the novel meaning of Klong Om-Non’s communities from an agricultural base to a sanctuary for urbanites. Consequently, community development programmes need to consider how designing and programming nodes of place could integrate with environmental identity and modification, that is, meaningful to people in the community and prospective visitors. Understanding adaptive nodes as convivial interior places in communities and collaborating with sustainable creativity will contribute to the urban rehabilitation of historic communities.