May 31, 2016 Teston’s Paper Selected as Best at National Conference
A paper written by Liz Teston, assistant professor, Interior Design, received the Best Paper Award at the 47th Annual Conference of the Environmental Design Research Association. The paper underwent two blind reviews before being selected as the best, and it is the only award given at the conference that recognizes the paper of a faculty member/professional.
The 2016 EDRA conference, held in May, provided a platform for design professionals, academics, researchers and students in architecture, interior design, urban planning, social ecology and more to discuss and learn about transitions in the design industries brought about by economies, society and research.
Following this theme, Teston’s paper, Place and Space: Repositioning Collectivity and Interiority, reviews the “role of politics in interior architecture through the work of Marc Augé and Guy Debord,” asserting that the “interior is comprised of both spatial and political experiences” and is rooted in the human experience. Teston’s research examines experiential drivers in contemporary interiors and how designers can learn from research methods of cultural geographers. It investigates the role of political theories from allied fields in building community, political agency and social consciousness in interior architecture.
A version of Teston’s paper will appear in Interior Architecture Theory Reader (Routledge, 2016), edited by Gregory Marinic.