Elina Loukou

“Cities and territories are here, and it is possible to understand them. Nothing else is needed. Just pay attention; just trust silence and immobility. In the end to design is to define contexts, to re-shape what is already there, to formalize the given. No concepts are needed, and neither are messages or literature.”

- Editorial, San Rocco  4, FUCK CONCEPTS! CONTEXT!, Summer 2012, p. 5.

Like cities, interior spaces are environments that are complex and have memories, contradictions, surprises and subconscious conditions. Like cities, existing interior spaces can learn from their history and how they have been used to provide us with clues as to how they might be adapted and improved. As with the city it may be better to acknowledge that which exists rather than endlessly starting afresh with a blank page.

How could we start the process of design if we rejected ‘the concept’ and instead explored the everyday existence of interior spaces, ensuring they are not taken for granted? How could we start the process of design by redefining the obvious and respecting the memories of a space – a process that might reveal the hidden possibilities of the existing, taking what might be seen as wasted, mundane or misused and giving it new purpose.

This approach might manifest itself in the form of small-scale interventions that can have an impact on large-scale spaces. These interventions can be read as spatial observations that comment on the existing interior conditions and can be driven by a re-appropriation of the found building fabric, elements housed within the space and the traces of human activities.