[INTERIOR] + [URBANISM]

Interiors as ‘common’ SPaces’ - design thinking across scale

This section is open-resource and reading supplement for BID students enrolled in DIDS 420: Studio Thesis II (Concept and Design Development) for activating/deepening socially-responsive design thinking. It is also for an audience that is genuinely interested in housing affordability and design for an impact.

Interiors and Urbanism are frequently seen as polar ends on the built-environment spectrum in spatial practice, with architecture serving as the intermediary between the two. Yet, there is a growing trend towards the merging and overlapping of the interior and urban realms, which functions as a strategy to counterbalance top-down planning with bottom-up power dynamics. This shift in scale is most evident in the often-discussed SSMUH (small-scale, multi-unit housing), but is also highly relevant in adaptive reuse of existing large infrastructures such as shopping malls or industrial buildings. The interiority of spaces as important interstitial gradients between the public and the private, threads through an urban fabric, playing a pivotal role in shaping the collective experience. Incremental changes to the interior of the urban fabric can collectively reshape the broader urban environment. By exploring the intersection of the interior and urbanism, our inquisition begins with:

How can we rethink and reinvent the city from the inside out?