Interstices

This symposium provides a forum for emerging and experienced researchers and practitioners, from New Zealand and beyond, to exchange views, knowledge and experiences about the relationship of interior and exterior in today's involuted, fragile and unsettled spaces.

Taking its lead from the writings of German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk, Unsettled Containers: Aspects of Interiority will examine proximate qualities of architecture and digital, intimate involvements; the creation of interior space as a fundamental human condition; the range of possible relationships inside the climatised hothouses of luxury consumption, relaxation and privileged cosmopolitanism familiar to us today; and the traditions, adaptations, revolutions and improvisations deployed by those who live outside.

Contributors have been invited to unsettle the dichotomy of interior and exterior; to redefine and reorient the concept of the interior for the present, and project it towards the future. The keynote address, Disorientation and Disclosure, will be given by world-renowned author Professor David Leatherbarrow, whose influence is clearly recognisable in debates about the appearance and perception of architecture, and how it is shaped by topography. His publications include Architecture Oriented Otherwise (2009), Topographical Stories: studies in landscape and architecture (2004), and Surface Architecture (2002  in collaboration with Mohsen Mostafavi), which won the Bruno Zevi Prize from the International Congress of Architecture Critics. Leatherbarrow is currently working on a book about the relationships between architecture and the city, arguing for the primacy of topography in both areas of design.
View David Leatherbarrow's profile
 
Unsettled Containers is jointly organised by the School of Architecture and Planning, The University of Auckland and the School of Art and Design, AUT University.
Interstices: Journal of Architecture and Related Arts