Interior Tools Interior Tactics: An introduction, Tactics for Alteration, an Interview with Fred Scott

Interior Tools Interior Tactics (ITIT) originated as a conference staged in 2008 by the Interiors Forum Scotland (IFS) of which I am secretary. The IFS is a grouping of interiors academics whose first conference, ‘Thinking Inside the Box’ attracted international participation in 2006. A reader, ITIT was published by Libri Books in 2011. I acted as contributor and co-editor.
Other than MIRC (cf the Memory Palace) The IFS was, at the time of its founding in 2006, the only research grouping devoted solely to interiors in the UK, and the only one in the UK devoted to contemporary practice rather than historiography.
ITIT is also innovative in that is comprises a series of debates between academic theorists and practicing professionals, asking not what the interior is (the question posed in our first publication, Thinking Inside the Box) but instead, what the interior designer does.
ITIT was (including the submissions of IFS members) compiled using a blind peer review system, and was also subjected to the review of Libri Books, who specialise in academic publication.
The thirty or so contributions to ITIT were global, ranging from Susie Attiwill (RMIT, and former secrtary of IDEA, Australia) to Fred Scott (RCA, and author of the classic On Altering Architecture), Graeme Brooker (President of Interior Educators UK).
In addition the ITIT conference and publication, as well as other IFS has spawned a series of subsequent organisations (Interior Educators UK, whose second formal meeting was held as part of ITIT) conferences (Interiors Futures Northumbria 2010, Interiors and Architecture Ravensbourne 2012) and associated publications.
While IFS is a ‘regional’ association, its repercussions are international. As a result of my involvement in ITIT, I am on review panels for IDEA and MIRC, the organisations upon which the IFS was modelled, and to guest edit IDEA’s 2013 journal.