The 2023 Interior Provocations Symposium: Upkeep will be hosted jointly by California College of the Arts and Pratt Institute in San Francisco on April 1, 2023. The symposium will explore issues of repair, maintenance, sustenance, and adaptation through this year’s theme: Upkeep. We accept and acknowledge the critical work of upkeeping the built environment, sustaining our histories and cultures, and maintaining our shared resources. We recognize the ways in which the interior has defined, reinforced, hidden, and protected servitude and repair. We appreciate the role of interiors to extend the lives of our architectures and design for persistent adaptation of spaces and the human interactions they sustain. Interior Provocations Upkeep seeks new discourse centered on the evolution and transformation of cultural narratives, adaptive reuse, and historical revelation. We seek forward-thinking and wide-ranging interpretations of this theme and welcome papers that explore these questions in history, theory and praxis, across time, culture and place.
The 2023 Interior Provocations Symposium: Upkeep will be hosted jointly by California College of the Arts and Pratt Institute in San Francisco on April 1, 2023. The symposium will explore issues of repair, maintenance, sustenance, and adaptation through this year’s theme: Upkeep. We accept and acknowledge the critical work of upkeeping the built environment, sustaining our histories and cultures, and maintaining our shared resources. We recognize the ways in which the interior has defined, reinforced, hidden, and protected servitude and repair. We appreciate the role of interiors to extend the lives of our architectures and design for persistent adaptation of spaces and the human interactions they sustain. Interior Provocations Upkeep seeks new discourse centered on the evolution and transformation of cultural narratives, adaptive reuse, and historical revelation. We seek forward-thinking and wide-ranging interpretations of this theme and welcome papers that explore these questions in history, theory and praxis, across time, culture and place.
The broadly outlined theme reflects the interest in wide-ranging interpretation. The conference encourages provocative and boundary-expanding proposals from design practitioners, historians, and theorists that challenge traditional assumptions and investigate overlooked parameters or influences. The symposium is organized around two themes:
– History + theory
– Praxis + theory
Indicate in your email subject and on your abstract whether your paper should be considered history + theory or praxis + theory.
Keynote: Sally Stone presents "Remember - Reveal - Construct: A Developed Methodology for Adaptive Reuse"
The re-use of any built environment creates a direct connection with the past - and with the future. Issues of heritage and sustainability combined with an understanding of the culture and society of those who originally created the building can generate a multi-faceted narrative. This acute knowledge can be used to liberate the building, site, or environment, then activate a new future for the place. It is possible to divide this research-and-design approach into three easily understandable steps; each of which then informs the process of remodelling.
Remember the characteristics of the site: look closely at the attributes, explore the nature of what is there, examine the place and find out what it is saying.
Reveal the situation: analyse the findings of the investigation to discover what they mean. Use these to exploit the very qualities of the situation.
Construct new elements that are appropriate to the situation: that heighten the experience of what is there, that become part of the continual evolution of the place.
Sally Stone is the Programme Leader for the MA Architecture and Adaptive Reuse programme, Director of the Continuity in Architecture Atelier at the Manchester School of Architecture, and a Visiting Professor at IUAV Venice. Her work is concerned with the sustainable use and reuse of buildings and situations. She has been designing, drawing, formulating ideas and writing about interiors and adaptive reuse for thirty years. Recent publications include: UnDoing Buildings (Routledge, 2019), ReReadings Volumes 1 + 2 (RIBA Publications, 2004, 2018), Inside Information: The Defining Concepts of Interior Design (2022), and Emerging Practices in Pedagogy (Routledge, 2021).
Submission Requirements:
Please submit abstracts with original, unpublished research to interiorprovocations@gmail.com by January 15, 9:00pm EST. Include the following required items:
Abstract: 300 words maximum
2-page cv
one to three images (required)
Depending upon the number of entries, a poster session will also be held. Please indicate in your abstract if you would like to be considered for this session only.
Location/Date:
2023 Interior Provocations: Upkeep will be held in person at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco, CA on April 1, 2023.
