Perspectives On Social Sustainability And Interior Architecture

This book argues that interior architects have a responsibility to practice their profession in collaborative ways that address the needs of communities and of to be the agents of social justice and cultural heritage. The book is divided into three sections, based on three pivotal themes — community engagement, social justice and cultural heritage. Each section has chapters that put forward the principles of these themes, leading into a variety of fascinating case studies that illustrate how socially sustainable design is implemented in diverse communities across the world. The second section includes four concise case studies of community housing issues, including remote-area indigenous housing and housing for the homeless. The third section offers two extensively researched essays on design and cultural heritage — a case study of the development of a redundant industrial site and a historical study of gendered domestic interiors. The book appeals to a wider audience than the design community alone and challenges mainstream interior design/interior architecture practitioners nationally and internationally to take a leading role in the field of socially responsible design. The issues raised by the authors are relevant for individuals, communities, government and non-government organisations, professionals and students. “In the twenty-first century we seem to have entered into a new world of knowledge discovery, where many of the most exciting insights come not from the authority of a traditional discipline, but from the dialogue that happens at the hubs and intersections of thought — the arenas where different disciplines and approaches, different schools and habits of thinking, come together to collaborate and contend. This collection is a good example of this, and I hope the book will be widely read and its lessons learned and applied.” Tim Costello, Officer of the Order of Australia, Chief Executive, World Vision Australia.

Environments people inhabit and experience have the power to enhance the wellbeing of individuals and their communities. In this unique collection of writing, Life from the Inside: Perspectives on Social Sustainability and Interior Architecture shares new ways of thinking about interior architecture by reconsidering theories, processes and outcomes that relate to how people live now and in the future. The issues raised by the authors are relevant for individuals, government and non-government organisations, professionals, students and communities.

The Handbook of Interior Architecture and Design offers a compelling collection of original essays that seek to examine the shifting role of interior architecture and interior design, and their importance and meaning within the contemporary world. Interior architecture and interior design are disciplines that span a complexity of ideas, ranging from human behaviour and anthropology to history and the technology of the future. Approaches to designing the interior are in a constant state of flux, reflecting and adapting to the changing systems of history, culture and politics. It is this process that allows interior design to be used as evidence for identifying patterns of consumption, gender, identity and social issues. The Handbook of Interior Architecture and Design provides a pioneering overview of the ideas and arrangements within the two disciplines that make them such important platforms from which to study the way humans interact with the space around them. Covering a wide range of thought and research, the book enables the reader to investigate fully the changing face of interior architecture and interior design, while offering questions about their future trajectory.

How can we engage communities? What is empowerment? To what extent should the project process be participatory? How is an outsider-insider relationship handled? How do researchers negotiate with the hegemony of western cultural interpretations? How are organizational and contextual influences handled in a project? What leadership demands do such projects place on researchers? What is capacity building? What are creative leaders and creative communities? How does the researcher journey from their studio to the situation? M2 Models and Methodologies for Community Engagement discusses key theoretical constructs — community engagement, capacity building, and community empowerment — in order to demonstrate how theory and practice are relevant to the development of forms of community involvement. The book maps the attributes of community based projects by moving beyond simply bringing people together from a variety of disciplines, and taking an approach which is transdisciplinary and applicable across cultures and genres. Here, all people — including the community — are ongoing contributors, and can freely move between their own and others’ discipline-specific arenas. M2 differs from and extends on other works in this field of practice and research, in that its transdisciplinary, collaborative approach positions the community as a particular kind of discipline to create real change in diverse locations and fields of experience. The book is in itself a model of community engagement, as the researchers have formed a community of research and practice for change, and have developed a transformative model for community engagement that is greater than the sum of its parts – hence M2. M2 offers a valuable resource for students, researchers, academics, practitioners, policy developers and volunteers from the fields of architecture, interior architecture, health, planning, anthropology, education, home economics, communication, political studies and development studies.

An accessible, climate-diverse guide that transforms readers from sustainable design novices to whole-solution problem solvers. Sustainable Design Basics is a student-friendly introduction to a holistic and integral view of sustainable design. Comprehensive in scope, this textbook presents basic technical information, sustainability strategies, and a practical, step-by-step approach for sustainable building projects. Clear and relatable chapters illustrate how to identify the factors that reduce energy use, solve specific sustainable design problems, develop holistic design solutions, and address the social and cultural aspects of sustainable design. Requiring no prior knowledge of the subject, the text’s easy-to-follow methodology leads readers through the fundamental sustainable design principles for the built environment. Sustainably-constructed and maintained buildings protect the health and improve the productivity of their occupants, as well as help to restore the global ecosystem. The authors, leading practitioners and educators in sustainable design, have created a resource that provides a solid introduction to broad level sustainability thinking that students can take forward into their professional practice. Topics include space planning for sustainable design, integrative and collaborative design, standards and rating systems, real-world strategies to conserve energy and resources through leveraging renewable natural resources and innovative construction techniques and their impact on our environment. Usable and useful both in and beyond the classroom, this book: Covers building location strategies, building envelopes and structures, integration of passive and active systems, green materials, and project presentation Examines cultural factors, social equity, ecological systems, and aesthetics Provides diverse student exercises that vary by climate, geography, setting, perspective, and typology Features a companion website containing extensive instructor resources Sustainable Design Basics is an important resource aimed at undergraduate architecture and interior design students, or first-year graduate students, as well as design professionals wishing to integrate sustainable design knowledge and techniques into their practice.

This collection identifies the key tensions and conflicts being debated within the field of critical disability studies and provides both an outline of the field in its current form and offers manifestos for its future direction. Traversing a number of disciplines from science and technology studies to maternal studies, the collection offers a transdisciplinary vision for the future of critical disability studies. Some common thematic concerns emerge across the book such as digital futures, the usefulness of anger, creativity, family as disability allies, intersectionality, ethics, eugenics, accessibility and interdisciplinarity. However, the contributors who write as either disabled people or allies do not proceed from a singular approach to disability, often reflecting different or even opposing positions on these issues. Containing contributions from established and new voices in disability studies outlining their own manifesto for the future of the field, this book will be of interest to all scholars and students working within the fields of disability studies, cultural studies, sociology, law, history and education. The concerns introduced here are further explored in its sister volume Interdisciplinary approaches to disability: looking towards the future.

Bringing together an international range of contributors from the fields of practice, theory and history, this book takes a fresh look at occupation. It argues that occupation is a prospect that begins with ruin--a residue from the past, an implied or even a resounding presence of something previous that holds the potential for transformation. This prospect invites us to repudiate, re-imagine and re-define lived space, thereby asserting occupation as an act of revolution. Authors drawn from the fields of architecture, urbanism, interior architecture, dance dramaturgy, art history, design and visual arts, cultural studies and media studies provide a unique, holistic view of occupation, examining topics such as: the authority of architecture; architecture as an act of revolution; women in hypersexual space; occupation as a serialized act of ruin; and the definition of space as repudiation. They discuss how acts that re-invent territory and/or shift boundaries--psychological, social and physical--affect identity and demonstrate possession. This theme of occupation is significant and topical at a time of radical flux, generated by the proliferation of hypermedia, and also by the dramatically shifting environmental, political and economic context of this era. The book concludes by asserting that it is through occupation (private and public: real, virtual, remembered, re-invented) that we appear or disappear as the individual or collective self, because the spaces we construct assert particular agendas which we may either contest or live in accord with.

Recent Developments in Asian Economics is a crucial resource of current, cutting-edge research for any scholar of international finance and economics. Chapters cover a wide range of topics, such as social welfare systems, organizational culture, sustainability, the impact of economic policy uncertainty, and more.