Urban interior: interior-making in the urban environment

Engaging interior design with questions of urbanism opens up new ways of thinking about how to address the increasing density occurring within cities globally. It is an often cited fact that for the first time in history there are more people living in cities than rural areas. This is expected to continue to increase, transforming cities and people’s lives. It is said that the twenty-first century will be known as the century of the city (Tibaijuka 2010). While interior design and urbanism may seem an unlikely connection, the idea of positioning interior design as a practice engaging with an outside as distinct from addressing the inside of a building finds connections historically and theoretically. This requires a different way of grasping the discipline of interior design from one which assumes it as a spatial discipline which happens inside built form. While ideas of the occupation of empty spaces within the built environment as urban rooms are immediate examples, there are also other potentials especially in the movement away from thinking about interior design as taking place in three-dimensional space. This paper moves to consider interior design as a spatial and temporal practice where the temporal/time is the dynamic context within which interior design practice is situated and involves a process of interior-making in relation to these forces. As an emerging practice through the twentieth century, interior design has been shaped by the forces of contemporary technologies which have challenged and transformed relations between inside and outside, interior and exterior, both spatially and temporally. Concepts of interior and interiority are encountered in contemporary critiques of the modern city. The writings of Mark Pimlott focus on the 'interiorised territory’ of mega shopping malls and other urban developments where there is only within: ‘the antagonistic exterior disappears; one is in a potentially endless environment that offers perpetual itinerancy and an illusion of freedom from which there is no escape’ (Pimlott 2010: 46). This makes one think of the fully functioning ski slope located inside a mall situated in the desert (Emirates Mall, Dubai) and the 24-7 city where there is no night as the lights are never turned off. Pimlott and others point to the increasing individualism that pervades contemporary societies and shapes urban fabrics. Intimate Metropolis is the title of a collection of essays on the modern city where the ‘choice of the word “intimate” reinforces the extent to which the modern city is predicated on the concept of the private individual, and on the sanctity of the individuals; inmost thoughts and feelings’ (di Palma et al. 2009: 1). Interior designers are well placed to critically address the process of interiorization and conditions of interiority and individualism. Interior design as a practice addresses the relation between people and their surroundings/environment specifically as one of inhabitation which addresses both physical and mental conditions. This paper will consider what this positioning of interior design will bring to the question of urbanism through an attention to not only spatial planning but also temporal, social and aesthetic concerns. These ideas have been explored and investigated within a university interior design program working with undergraduate and postgraduate students to test these ideas through design research and scenario-based propositions. Research through design: through different scenarios, propositions and speculations which enable one to think ‘what if?’; through design studios, exhibitions and projects. This approach is critical to design as a practice positioned as an agent of change and transformation. The outcomes from an undergraduate design studio called Urban Rooms which tested different kinds of theoretical approaches to thinking about interior-making; a Masters by Research project which collected and analysed street vendors in Singapore and Taipei in relation to interior design techniques; and projects by a research group called Urban Interior will be presented. This paper will open up the potential of interior design as a critical urban practice for the twenty-first century, ‘the century of the city’

Working Space: Interiors as provisional compositions

Abstract: The conference theme of occupation and constructed space facilitates an engagement with several ideas currently shaping interior design thinking, discourse and practice. Occupation, inhabitation, dwelling -the production of a place for people to inhabit, dwell, occupy -are a focus of interior design. While these terms are often used interchangeably they bring with them various theoretical frameworks and philosophical underpinnings. The term 'occupation' not only conjures ideas of residential living but is hard to prise from nuances related to military occupations, the occupation of territories, and colonialism. The conference provocation invites a thinking through the concept of 'occupation' as a way to locate some assumed givens occupying interior design as a discipline and through this, open up the potential for new ways of thinking and practising interior design which may in turn lead to different kinds of occupations and interiors

?interior, practices of interiorization, interior designs

This PhD was undertaken as an opportunity to address and reinvent a practice involving exhibition design, curation and writing situated within the discipline of interior design. The motivation for the research was the prevalence of assumptions in relation to ‘interior’ and how – even though it is designed – the term ‘interior’ is rarely posed as a creative problematic. One of the main objectives of the PhD was, and continues to be, to open up ‘interior’, to encourage different ways of thinking and designing interiors, and through this to contribute to the emerging discourse and practice of interior design. Two questions have moved with the research. The formal PhD research question posed at the beginning: ‘if one shifts from Cartesian and phenomenological concepts of object/subject relations, then what kind of interior(s) become actualised?’ And a question connected with ‘interior’ – more of a tacit question engaged with by the practice and one which surfaced through the research with the question shifting from what? to when? where?, how? and which? – from interior? to ?interior. These questions were posed through projects and practices of exhibition, curating, writing, craft, design and teaching. Here, exhibitions and other projects were experiments. Experiments not in a deductive way where a set of parameters were established beforehand and then tested. Instead they were experiments as a process of production engaged with the experiential world – materials, forces, chance, constraints – to see what can happen, what I can do and what can be said and seen. Ideas from Gilles Deleuze, Elizabeth Grosz and Michel Foucault were picked up and used as tools for thinking and doing. The desire to shift from phenomenological and Cartesian modes of subject-object relations necessitated an engagement with philosophical thinking. The PhD has been an apprenticeship in a thinking which has grappled with a need to address issues of certainty, knowledge, truth and subjectivity in relation to practice, research and the concept of interior. This apprenticeship has enabled a way of positioning research through practice that values experimentation, experience and expression. It has also led to a philosophy defined through an interior design practice. This is different to current approaches that attempt to theorize the discipline. This training enables an understanding of how to engage interior design practice as creative research and, through this, foster research in relation to the discipline. ?interior, practices of interiorization, interior designs offers up ways of thinking and practising interior that contributes to the discipline of interior design by opening up and inviting new ways of thinking and practising. ?interior is more of a proposition than an answer to a question, a posing of interior where the invitation is to attend to it as a design, as a question in relation to practise which as a creative problematic needs to be addressed each time anew; to place the question of ?interior in the world; to open it up to the exterior/outside

Impact of phosphorus application on drought resistant responses of Eucalyptus grandis seedlings

Eucalyptus grandis is the most widely planted tree species worldwide and can face severe drought during the initial months after planting because the root system is developing. A complete randomized design was used to study the effects of two water regimes (well-watered and water-stressed) and phosphorus (P) applications (with and without P) on the morphological and physio-biochemical responses of E. grandis. Drought had negative effects on the growth and metabolism of E. grandis, as indicated by changes in morphological traits, decreased net photosynthetic rates (Pn), pigment concentrations, leaf relative water contents (LRWCs), nitrogenous compounds, over-production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and higher lipid peroxidation. However, E. grandis showed effective drought tolerance strategies, such as reduced leaf area and transpiration rate (E), higher accumulation of soluble sugars and proline and a strong antioxidative enzyme system. P fertilization had positive effects on well-watered seedlings due to improved growth and photosynthesis, which indicated the high P requirements during the initial E. grandis growth stage. In drought-stressed seedlings, P application had no effects on the morphological traits, but it significantly improved the LRWC, Pn, quantum efficiency of photosystem II (Fv/Fm), chlorophyll pigments, nitrogenous compounds and reduced lipid peroxidation. P fertilization improved E. grandis seedling growth under well-watered conditions but also ameliorated some leaf physiological traits under drought conditions. The effects of P fertilization are mainly due to the enhancement of plant N nutrition. Therefore, P can be used as a fertilizer to improve growth and production in the face of future climate change.Fil: Tariq, Akash. Chinese Academy of Sciences; República de China. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences; ChinaFil: Pan, Kaiwen. Chinese Academy of Sciences; República de ChinaFil: Olatunji, Olusanya A. Chinese Academy of Sciences; República de China. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences; ChinaFil: Graciano, Corina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata. Instituto de Fisiología Vegetal. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. Instituto de Fisiología Vegetal; ArgentinaFil: Li, Zilong. Chinese Academy of Sciences; República de China. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences; ChinaFil: Li, Ningning. Southwest University; ChinaFil: Song, Dagang. Chinese Academy of Sciences; República de China. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences; ChinaFil: Sun, Feng. Chinese Academy of Sciences; República de China. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences; ChinaFil: Wu, Xiaogang. Chinese Academy of Sciences; República de ChinaFil: Dakhil, Mohammed A.. Chinese Academy of Sciences; República de China. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences; China. Helwan University; EgiptoFil: Sun, Xiaoming. Chinese Academy of Sciences; República de ChinaFil: Zhang, Lin. Chinese Academy of Sciences; República de Chin

Can forest management based on natural disturbances maintain ecological resilience?

Given the increasingly global stresses on forests, many ecologists argue that managers must maintain ecological resilience: the capacity of ecosystems to absorb disturbances without undergoing fundamental change. In this review we ask: Can the emerging paradigm of natural-disturbance-based management (NDBM) maintain ecological resilience in managed forests? Applying resilience theory requires careful articulation of the ecosystem state under consideration, the disturbances and stresses that affect the persistence of possible alternative states, and the spatial and temporal scales of management relevance. Implementing NDBM while maintaining resilience means recognizing that (i) biodiversity is important for long-term ecosystem persistence, (ii) natural disturbances play a critical role as a generator of structural and compositional heterogeneity at multiple scales, and (iii) traditional management tends to produce forests more homogeneous than those disturbed naturally and increases the likelihood of unexpected catastrophic change by constraining variation of key environmental processes. NDBM may maintain resilience if silvicultural strategies retain the structures and processes that perpetuate desired states while reducing those that enhance resilience of undesirable states. Such strategies require an understanding of harvesting impacts on slow ecosystem processes, such as seed-bank or nutrient dynamics, which in the long term can lead to ecological surprises by altering the forest's capacity to reorganize after disturbance

Comparing composition and structure in old-growth and harvested (selection and diameter-limit cuts) northern hardwood stands in Quebec

Single-tree selection cutting is sometimes believed to be similar to the natural gap disturbance regime of hardwood forests, but few studies have specifically compared the compositional and structural characteristics of old-growth hardwood stands, undergoing natural gap dynamics and hardwood stands previously subjected to partial cuts. This study characterized and compared the composition (saplings and trees) and structure (gaps, foliage distribution, tree diameter and density, snags and coarse woody debris) of old-growth stands (OG), 12-year-old selection cuts (SC), and 28-33-year-old diameter-limit cuts (DLC) in sugar maple (Acer saccharum)-dominated northern hardwood stands. Results showed marked structural differences between OG and harvested stands, with stronger differences between DLC and OG than between SC and OG. The synchronized formation of numerous canopy openings in harvested stands induced a massive post-harvest recruitment of advance regeneration in both SC and DLC that created a dense foliage layer in the understory. Large living trees (dbh > 39.1 cm) and defective trees were less numerous in SC than OG, which can have a detrimental impact on species dependent on these structural elements, and on the future availability and characteristics of coarse woody debris. Relatively few compositional differences were noticed among stand types, although a greater proportion of mid-tolerant species was found in the post-harvest recruitment cohorts of harvested stands compared to OG, and a lower proportion of beech (Fagus grandifolia Ehrh.) saplings was observed in DLC compared to OG and SC. We argue that even if selection cutting is closer to the natural disturbance regime of hardwood forests than diameter-limit cutting, and therefore representing progress toward the development and implementation of a natural-disturbance-based management, a recurring application of selection cutting might lead to a homogenization of forest structure and composition, a reduction of key structural features and a reduction in biological diversity at both the stand and landscape scales. Some management recommendations are proposed

Decadal Effects of Thinning on Understory Light Environments and Plant Community Structure in a Subtropical Forest

Canopy-opening disturbance such as thinning has immediate and substantive effects on understory microclimate and therefore the establishment and growth of understory plants. A large number of studies have reported the effects of thinning on tree growth, but few studies have examined long-term effects of thinning on understory light environments and species and functional diversity of understory plants. Even less is known whether the change in understory plant community structure observed following canopy disturbance is short-lived and would diminish as the canopy closes or a long lasting due to legacy effects. We examined the effects of an experimental removal of 25% and 50% of the woody vegetation on understory light availability and variability on understory plant community structure in a subtropical Cryptomeria japonica plantation nine years after the treatment. Differences in availability of understory light among treatments diminished nine years after the experimental vegetation removal (thinning), but variability of understory light was still two times higher in the thinned treatments than the un-thinned control. Species diversity of dominant and common understory plants was lower in the control than in the two thinning treatments, which were not different from each other. Community species and functional composition were also different between the un-thinned control and the two thinning treatments. The thinned plots had proportionally more individuals of grasses and forbs and fewer individuals of ferns. Our results indicate that the effects of thinning on understory light variability last longer than on light availability representing an important and long-lasting alteration of resource heterogeneity. At both species and functional group levels, greater diversity and unique composition in the thinned treatments compared to undisturbed control suggest a link between resource heterogeneity and biodiversity in the forest understory or legacy effects associated with the thinning-induced changes in understory plant community

Consequences of various landscape-scale ecosystem management strategies and fire cycles on age-class structure and harvest in boreal forests

At the landscape scale, one of the key indicators of sustainable forest management is the age-class distribution of stands, since it provides a coarse synopsis of habitat potential, structural complexity, and stand volume, and it is directly modified by timber extraction and wildfire. To explore the consequences of several landscape-scale boreal forest management strategies on age-class structure in the Mauricie region of Quebec, we used spatially explicit simulation modelling. Our study investigated three different harvesting strategies (the one currently practiced and two different strategies to maintain late seral stands) and interactions between fire and harvesting on stand age-class distribution. We found that the legacy of initial forested age structure and its spatial configuration can pose short- (<50 years) to medium-term (150-300 years) challenges to balancing wood supply and ecological objectives. Also, ongoing disturbance by fire, even at relatively long cycles in relation to historic levels, can further constrain the achievement of both timber and biodiversity goals. For example, when fire was combined with management, harvest shortfalls occurred in all scenarios with a fire cycle of 100 years and most scenarios with a fire cycle of 150 years. Even a fire cycle of 500 years led to a reduction in older forest when its maintenance was not a primary constraint. Our results highlight the need to consider the broad-scale effects of natural disturbance when developing ecosystem management policies and the importance of prioritizing objectives when planning for multiple resource use