Idea Journal Extra Ordinary Interiors Practising Critical Reflection

(Extra) Ordinary Interiors features research articles and visual essays by academics, research students and practitioners that demonstrate contemporary modes of criticality and reflection on specific interior environments in ways that expand upon that which is ordinary (of the everyday, common, banal, or taken for granted).

Interior Technicity: Unplugged and/ or Switched On invites reflection on how interiors have always been augmenting entities and how they continue to be so—in other words, extending, facilitating and consolidating bodies within socio-cultural environments. Rather than seeing an interior as an 'inside' in opposition to a world beyond, it asks what modes of 'folding inward' have equipped and enabled the spatial environment? Technicity—the world of tools and technical objects that extend and mediate memory, as Bernard Steigler (1998) describes it—has never been what inside-ness, in its sheltering of life, keeps at bay; mediation is from the start technical, indexed to inscribing practices rich in temporal and embodied implications. By this reading, interiors have always been augmented and augmenting (in the sense of the Latin"augmentare": to increase, enlarge, or enrich). This IDEA Journal issue considers this mode of 'folding inward' as a condition of an interior'sspecificity. Whether it be a small structure such as a tramping hut or a tiny house, a large complex interior environment such as an airport or shopping mall, handmade with local materials such as Samoan fale, or the result of manufacturing processes assembling artificial and prefabricated elements as in the case of a spacecraft, boat or train, interiors are augmented, mediated, generated or embellished by technologies. The effect of these technologies is not neutral; one's experience of an interior is significantly influenced by the affective resonance of its technologies.

The Language of the Soul in Narrative Therapy uniquely bridges the gap between narrative therapy and spirituality to describe how the theory and practice of narrative therapy may be expanded and enriched by incorporating the language of the soul. Divided into three parts, the book begins by contextualizing the approach of narrative therapy and spirituality. Chapters then debate the complexity of the ‘soul’ as a term drawing on the work of Christian mystics and philosophers, such as Teresa of Avila, Edith Stein, Merleau-Ponty, and Bakhtin, to show how their theoretical ideas can be incorporated in counseling practice and spiritual direction. The book concludes by discussing how the language of the soul can be integrated and applied in postmodern practice. With case examples from faith belief systems, such as Christianity, Buddhism, Paganism, Wicca, and Yazidism, throughout, this book is essential reading for therapists, clinical social workers, and counsellors in practice and graduate training, as well as spiritual directors and pastoral counselors interested in the ideas and practices of narrative therapy.

Making Home(s) in Displacement critically rethinks the relationship between home and displacement from a spatial, material, and architectural perspective. Recent scholarship in the social sciences has investigated how migrants and refugees create and reproduce home under new conditions, thereby unpacking the seemingly contradictory positions of making a home and overcoming its loss. Yet, making home(s) in displacement is also a spatial practice, one which intrinsically relates to the fabrication of the built environment worldwide. Conceptually the book is divided along four spatial sites, referred to as camp, shelter, city, and house, which are approached with a multitude of perspectives ranging from urban planning and architecture to anthropology, geography, philosophy, gender studies, and urban history, all with a common focus on space and spatiality. By articulating everyday homemaking experiences of migrants and refugees as spatial practices in a variety of geopolitical and historical contexts, this edited volume adds a novel perspective to the existing interdisciplinary scholarship at the intersection of home and displacement. It equally intends to broaden the canon of architectural histories and theories by including migrants' and refugees' spatial agencies and place-making practices to its annals. By highlighting the political in the spatial, and vice versa, this volume sets out to decentralise and decolonise current definitions of home and displacement, striving for a more pluralistic outlook on the idea of home.

Help children of all learning styles and strengths improve their critical thinking skills with these creative, cross-curricular activities. Each engaging activity focuses on skills such as recognizing and recalling, evaluating, and analyzing.

The publication captures the work done at the University of Cincinnati School of Architecture and Interior Design while showcasing student work, faculty research, co-op stories, study abroad programs, and snapshots from the many events happening at our school. ECHOS is a platform for simultaneous conversations with shared ethos at UC SAID. Various constellations begin to surface and map our diverse milieu of academic and social interactions that revolve around the following five main themes: anxiety, praxis, trope, chreod, and utopia. Introduced by a series of analytical diagrams which are paired up with essays by lead figures in the discipline, the themes expand on the issues of theoretical anxiety, architectural discourse, practice, typology, self-made analogies, ad hoc morphologies inherent to research, flux and reflux - that return each disruption to a steady trajectory - similar to the natural cycle of compression and release generated by our co-op program, and the fictitious, the ideal. Anxiety collects and synthesizes among multiple contradicting theories entertaining with equanimity various solutions to design problems. Praxis looks at outcomes - may those be physical, prototypical, digital or analog, multi-dimensional and multi-media, spoken, written or unwritten - as well as working methodologies that shape design thinking. Trope begins to map out trends, emergent ideologies, and previously non-denominational design expressions. Chreod documents and interprets field conditions, rule based processes, issues of transgressions, non-smooth and nomadic entities which cut across arbolic like divisions. Utopia, while suspending various otherwise necessary constraints, allows for a euphoric and optimistic view of the world, with the goal of envisioning daring possibilities otherwise unimaginable. Utopia, therefore, foreshadows all other themes.

The New York Times bestselling authors of Switch and Made to Stick explore why certain brief experiences can jolt us and elevate us and change us—and how we can learn to create such extraordinary moments in our life and work. While human lives are endlessly variable, our most memorable positive moments are dominated by four elements: elevation, insight, pride, and connection. If we embrace these elements, we can conjure more moments that matter. What if a teacher could design a lesson that he knew his students would remember twenty years later? What if a manager knew how to create an experience that would delight customers? What if you had a better sense of how to create memories that matter for your children? This book delves into some fascinating mysteries of experience: Why we tend to remember the best or worst moment of an experience, as well as the last moment, and forget the rest. Why “we feel most comfortable when things are certain, but we feel most alive when they’re not.” And why our most cherished memories are clustered into a brief period during our youth. Readers discover how brief experiences can change lives, such as the experiment in which two strangers meet in a room, and forty-five minutes later, they leave as best friends. (What happens in that time?) Or the tale of the world’s youngest female billionaire, who credits her resilience to something her father asked the family at the dinner table. (What was that simple question?) Many of the defining moments in our lives are the result of accident or luck—but why would we leave our most meaningful, memorable moments to chance when we can create them? The Power of Moments shows us how to be the author of richer experiences.

Universal Principles of Interior Design presents 100 concepts and guidelines that are critical to a successful visualization and application of interior design. Richly illustrated and easy to navigate, this comprehensive reference pairs clear explanations of every topic with visual examples of it applied in practice. By considering these concepts and examples, you can learn to make more informed and ultimately better design decisions. The book is organized alphabetically so that principles can be easily and quickly referenced. For those interested in addressing a specific challenge or application problem, the principles are also indexed by questions commonly confronting designers. Each principle is presented in a two-page format: The left-hand page contains a succinct definition, a full description of the principle, and examples of and guidelines for its use. Side notes, which appear to the right of the text, provide elaborations and references. The right-hand page contains visual examples and related graphics to support a deeper understanding of the principle. This landmark reference is the standard for interior design students, practitioners, and educators, and others who seek to broaden and improve their understanding of and expertise in interior design. The titles in the Rockport Universal series offer comprehensive and authoritative information and edifying and inspiring visual examples on multidisciplinary subjects for designers, architects, engineers, students, and anyone who is interested in expanding and enriching their design knowledge.