A material intervention: Stories of the interior narrated through material reality

This is a study not of space, or the spatial, but of the physical and tangible. Objects we see, touch, and interact with every day – materials.

The surfaces and matter we encounter within the constructed interior reinforce our relationships and understanding of the rooms we inhabit, emphasising cultural and personal associations, perception and memory, of time spent in daily life.

Interior Design often begins with an existing host space, and the narrative of this host is a complex multi-layered story, based around origins, context and locality. In this reality, very rarely is our canvas a blank one. Most buildings are already rich in material narrative in both a physical and metaphorical sense, when we commence our design journey.

As an Interior Designer, we choose what to demolish, retain, embellish, and emphasise. Some features are celebrated, and others ripped out, discarded, or simply painted over, hidden from view. Their stories forgotten or secrets revealed.

Materials and finishes, methods and techniques, collide across time, bringing together a rich diversity of stuff across decades, eras, centuries, connecting people and their stories within three-dimensional space.

Each individual product or material we add, or which already belongs to the building, exists in its own right, as an object loaded with cultural weight, myths, and perceptions, aligned or misaligned with the theory of things. In this sense, the Interior is a series of layers upon layers of stuff – materials, colours, structures and surfaces, embedded with individual and combined stories, culture and narrative.