NEXT.cc

NEXT.cc is an eco web that develops ethical imagination and environmental stewardship. NEXT.cc introduces what design is, what design does and why design is important through over 100 journeys.

Each NEXT.cc journey may be associated with scales:

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Interiority

Look around. Where do you spend most of your time? If you are like most of us, you spend 90% of it indoors! How could it be better? Walk outside of the room that you are in. Are you in another room? How many other rooms before you walk outside into Mother Nature? Are you in a front yard, a back yard, a street? Did you know that the idea of interiors precedes you as you walk through life setting up spaces and your relationship to them? Definitions of interior spaces (both inside and outside), how we perceive and interact with them, what they look like, how they function or work, how they connect to and impact the world is the field of Interiority. Interiority is like a skin or clothing we wrap ourselves in to protect us from nature and from the world. It is a place we can come into, be in, and look out from. It is a container for our living, our memories, our imagination.

What makes a healthy interior? Where does the inside begin and where does it end?

Activity 1 Inside/Outside Pinhead Place

How is space defined? Space is a containment or the surround parameters of a volume that can be entered into and experienced by people. In this activity you will explore four kinds of space defining elements: vertical points (columns), planes (walls), overhead planes (ceilings, roofs), and ground planes (flat, suppressed, or raised). Use a clothespin as a scaled figure of a person. First assemble your interior elements. Cut a series of straws 12” long. Cut some stiff paper in squares or rectangles to use as your ground plane and overhead planes. Cut up cardboard rectangles from an old box for walls. Build your two spaces on stiff board bases. Glue the ground plane on the board. Then glue the structural elements to the board - columns or walls. Place ceilings or roofs on top of the structural elements. Color the board ‘outside’ of your space like a garden. Choose an entrance to your space. Place the clothespin inside of your space. Invite other clothespin friends over!

You are a space maker!

  1. Create a space with points, ground plane and an overhead plane.
  2. Create another space using horizontal planes or walls.
  3. Create a third space using a combination of columns and walls. Experiment with openings in your roof and textures on your ground plane. Add color.

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Activity 2 Your Space

If we spend 90% of our time indoors, one-third of it…is in our bed! In this activity, you will record your bedroom as it is, describe what activities take place in your bedroom (both day and night), list the furnishings, photograph key aspects of your room, and re-imagine your dream bedroom. Use a bedroom planner: http://www.ikea.com/ms/enUS/roomsideas/splashplanners.html, or use standard dimensions of bedroom furniture to rethink your bedroom. Select different furniture, furniture placement and room colors.

Sleep in a cloud, float away in dreamland!

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Activity 3 Sequencing Spaces

How are spaces connected? Transitions are thresholds from one space to another. Thresholds may be as immediate as a doorway, or organizational such as a passage, or hall. In this exercise you will build three distinct spaces and then connect them to each other. Choose three spatial identities from the list of spatial qualities. Concentrate on developing the character, mood and experience of the space that evokes or communicates the essence of your chosen descriptor. Use what you have learned about columns and walls and experiment with different transparent and opaque materials to create mood and ambiance of the three spaces. Build your spaces for you human clothespin and explore differences in experiences when moving the pinhead from space to space.

Identify space!

Spatial Identities Intimate Monumental Fractured Sensual Formal Playful

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Review

  1. Most of us spend how much time of our life indoors?

  2. How much of an average life is spent in the bedroom?

  3. Rooms can evoke emotions.

  4. Exterior rooms can be interiors.

  5. Interior space can feel open as well as closed.

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