User:CUfacts/Inytpes Research and Teaching Project

Project Abstract

The Intypes (Interior Archetypes) Research and Teaching Project, initiated in 1997 at Cornell University, creates a typology of contemporary interior design practices that are derived from reiterative historical designs that span time and style and cross cultural boundaries. The argument for the significance of a typology of historic and contemporary interior design practices is based on eleven years of experiments that have already produced approximately 70 archetypes developed by the principal investigators and graduate students. Intypes identify contemporary design practices that have not been named, thereby providing designers with an interior-specific, history-specific, and contemporary design-specific vocabulary. The project also offers an innovative approach to further design criticism and design sustainability. The Interior Archetypes Project produces a new knowledge base for the creative dimension of design. It is the first project of its kind to assemble contemporary design theory in a searchable database using primary source imagery. The key deliverable is its web site—www.intypes.cornell.edu.

Intypes

Intypes represent ideal examples of a historical and culturally determined practice of design internationally; identify contemporary design practices that have not been named; provide designers with an interior-specific, history-specific, contemporary design-specific vocabulary; provide a new knowledge base for the creative dimension of design; offer an innovative approach to further design criticism and sustainability studies.

Research Approaches


 * Premise. How can students leave the academy without a formalized knowledge of contemporary design? Contemporary design should become a focused area of study. The creative dimension of design should become a knowledge base. Design traits can be identified from design practice.
 * Method. To Aldo Rossi (1982) “type is the very idea of architecture, closest to its essence”. The Intypes Project’s methodological structure produces the first typology of interior design (a grouping of design productions in which some inherent characteristics make them similar). Initially, the project derives types from the published work of designers.
 * Theory. The project's theoretical framework is based on George Kubler’s model, The Shape of Time. A sequence of design iterations by designers can be traced through time—as a continuum, or a series of replications—marked by linked and similar solutions. In the long run, a sequence may serve as scaffolding for new design. This theory allows faculty to formally teach contemporary design as part of historical studies.
 * Protocol. Research begins with tracing a series of design practices in approximately 1,200 issues of design trade magazines, such as Interior Design and Architectural - Record.  When types begin to take shape, researchers conduct site visits in order to compare printed images with built works.

Intypes Research Group

Research for the Intypes Study at Cornell is generated by an interdisciplinary research group comprised of four graduate faculty representing three colleges and three departments and a cadre of Master of Arts graduate students in interior design. See the Scholars Page. By August 2010 the research from fifteen M.A. theses will have contributed to this project.

Categories of Study

Studies have been completed for Apartment, Boutique Hotel, House, Resort and Spa and Restaurant. Adaptive Use, Artificial Lighting and Health Care studies are underway and will be finished by fall 2009. Studies for Art Museum, Hotel and Workplace will be finished by fall 2010. A Retail study was completed in 2004, but another study will be undertaken in 2011. Categories for future studies include: art gallery, bank, bar and club, children's environment, circulation, color, education, furnishings, library, planar element, sacred space, showroom, theater, theme restaurant.

The Importance of Trade Magazines to the Study

Interior Design is temporally limited. In contract design an installation remains approximately seven years, less for hospitality design in a good economy. Therefore, design and architectural trade magazines provide a longitudinal record of contract work. For example, Interior Design began publishing in 1932; Architectural Record has been in continuous publication since 1891. Other design trade periodicals are also surveyed, including those in areas of specialization, such as hospitality design, as well as international titles.

Naming Practices

Naming often evokes human characteristics or behaviors. Lonely Couple describes the generations' old practice of isolating a pair of chairs in proximity of a conversational grouping. Naked effectively describes not only the overall aesthetic of some boutique hotels, but also how one feels in a bathroom with glass walls or no walls at all.
 * With about 70 intypes identified to date, each Intype name and icon must mean something to those who recollect them. Terms are mnemonic.
 * The processes of naming Intypes, visual representation and definition are about reduction.
 * Naming also represents a translation of design practices into a formalized language that stems from research, but with the intent to be accessible to a diversified group of users.
 * When an intype term is used without explanation or translation or gloss, it is considered an accepted part of design language. The diverse ways in which intypes will be put to use makes it a language. If the language is engaged by the public, then Intypes become a productive language.

Web Site


 * http://intypes.cornell.edu/
 * The web site design facilitates dissemination at two levels, the first, descriptive and informational; the second, in-depth research evidence.
 * The research text and documentation for each intype is extensive. Each intype has a general definition, an application definition, a comprehensive description and a photographic chronological sequence of published interiors.
 * The Photo Gallery of thumbprints opens by separate practice types with a chronological sequence of images. Choosing one of the images opens the photographs into a gallery (slide show) view.