Interiority in the City

Liz Teston (The University of Tennessee Knoxville)

In 1969, urbanist William Whyte established the empirical observation methods that he later deployed in The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces. Around that same time, EDRA’s founders first advocated for “a person-centered approach to design.” These approaches to urbanity and design continue to impact the contemporary built environment. Curator Brendan Cormier posits that the threshold between interior public spaces and exterior public spaces should be blurred, in an effort to encourage typically-exterior-activities on the interior. 1 From this, we can suggest that the most sustainable form of urbanism is the human-scaled built environment. Cities are places that bring people from all walks of life together. Likewise, places that are designed with a focus on the human experience are conditions of interiority.

I view interiority as a perceived condition rather than a place. Interiority can, therefore, be found inside structures, but also in the public sphere. This condition of “interior-feeling” places in exteriors is what I often describe as “public interiority.” Design, using methods that promote the human experience, is about revealing, reshaping, and improving everyday settings for everyday people. As such, I like to think of urban design as within the territory of the interior designer. If we suspend disciplinary boundaries and design exterior urban spaces as if they are interior spaces, we can infuse interior architecture with diverse and inclusionary practices. This approach represents a shift from conventional design practices that typically elevate the formal and material aspects of design.

In this presentation, I will examine public interiorities in Nashville, Knoxville and Bucharest to describe various form-based and sensory-based conditions of interiority. These conditions will be analyzed and evaluated in terms of their ability to promote sustainability, human-health, and well-being.

1) Ljuubanovic, K.(2016, April 6). Why it’s time to reimagine public spaces using ‘interior urbanism’. Retrieved from https://tinyurl.com/y82t4mu8