Conference Agenda

Sketching in Space is a participatory methodology for interior design research. The research question framing the session asks how design-build approaches, most often situated in architectural or exterior contexts, might be translated into interior environments as a means of inquiry, spatial reasoning, and shared knowledge production. 

Interior design research frequently relies on representational practices that separate design intention from material engagement(Hewitt, 2020). Sketching in Space is proposed as a methodological response to this condition, repositioning interior space as something that can be explored through direct, collective construction rather than prior representation. 

Consciously stepping outside habits of drawing on paper, CAD, or making scale models allows a critical perspective on conventional design practice. Modelling in space, on site using slim light weight timber battens allows participants immersion in the human scale. Working in this way permits the co-evolution of form with immediate, haptic feedback on the user experience - a precondition for the immersive state of flow (Tse et al., 2022) 

The methodology combines the immediacy associated with sketching and the social character of collective making. Historically, shared making practices embedded design knowledge in material processes and in place, rather than in authored representations (Sennett, 2012, 2009). By contrast, contemporary design practice often privileges individual ideation and formalised drawing as the primary site of decision-making. Drawing, modelling, and digital simulation are effective tools for abstraction and communication, yet they also defer contact with scale, resistance, occupation, and atmosphere. These separations become particularly pronounced in interior contexts, where proximity, enclosure, movement, and use are central to spatial understanding. Sketching in Space seeks to reconnect these domains by using lightweight, reconfigurable materials to enable spatial propositions to be assembled, inhabited, and adjusted at full scale during the design process.