Testing interiors: an exploration of emerging digital practices as learning tools

Interior Design by its very definition is a discipline of circumstance and situation. We are working within a host space, site or area and using its existing physical characteristics as an intrinsic part of the process. As practitioners we are bound by the problematic nature of the building process. It is rare that we can make a full scale ‘mock up’ of the creative proposal, instead we reply on an array of representations to communicate our intentions. As a university tutor, teaching these techniques makes up a large part of the design pedagogy.

The advent of technology such as digital twin prototyping (DTP), AR, VR and Lidar scanning, amongst others, allows us many innovative ways to test out our various interventions before committing to a final proposal. We are teaching cohorts who are immersed within a Digital Anthropology based culture, often spending long periods ‘of their attention within digitised environments’1.