Incomplete devices for interior production

Far from fixed and predetermined, an interior is always in flux. It is contingent, dynamic and interdependent through relations to its participants and the temporal forces that affect it. This paper discusses the way in which an interior design practice has adopted the indeterminacy of interiority - a condition of constant production, assembled and affected by the built environment, objects, information, media and personal interactions that we encounter. By adopting a certain level of 'incompleteness' of material and form, the practice developed a series of diagrammatic and scenographic tools that allow a specific engagement with complexity and flux. The openness of the diagram is a generative tool within the design process, a maker of new convergences and knowledge, rather than simply a communicator of prior understanding. It provides a conversational space in which collaborative ideas can interplay and intersect...' not only an abstract model of the way things behave in the world but a map of possible worlds' (Allen, 1998, pp.16). Layered upon these diagrams is an assembly of scenic fragments that draw people into the work, a mise-en scène of objects and actions that intentionally seeks to activate the role of the participant in a scenographic negotiation of space. It becomes a performative encounter through the assemblage of scenes, providing a critical space for collaboration and the opportunity to externalise an otherwise internal subject. The interior produced simultaneously becomes both real and fictional, a mediator between the self and others.