Intypes (Interior Archetypes) Research and Teaching Project

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The Intypes (Interior Archetypes) Research and Teaching Project, initiated in 1997 at Cornell University, creates a typology of contemporary interior design practices derived from reiterative historical designs that span time and style and cross cultural boundaries. An Intype represents an ideal example of a historical and culturally determined design practice. The project produces a new knowledge base from practice-led research by creating the first typology of contemporary design practices derived from historical sequences.

The research identifies design traits that have not been named, generates a design-specific vocabulary, and publishes a digital database of interior architectural photographs. The project also offers an innovative approach to further design criticism and design sustainability. It is the first project of its kind to assemble contemporary design theory in a digital database using interior architecture photographs.

The project represents a robust production of new knowledge spanning a twenty-two-year timeframe. Research was initiated in 1997 by Professor Jan Jennings in the Department of Design and Environmental Analysis. Jennings and Professor Kathleen Gibson were awarded a Faculty Innovation in Teaching Grant from 2007 to 2010. Founding Partners, the International Association of Interior Designers (IIDA) and Interior Design magazine, joined the project in 2007. In 2009, a free and open research website was launched. Research continued through 2019.

Intype Definition

An Intype represents an ideal example of a historical and culturally determined design practice. The project’s research methodology traces, across time, a sequence of evolving design iterations appearing as a continuum or series of replications. Through this process, an identified sequence leads to Intype naming and definition. Each Intype, among nearly one hundred identified to date, serves as scaffolding for interior design practice and research. Designers come to understand their work as part of a historical, reiterative process, and contemporary design can be taught as part of historical studies.

The following studies for practice types are on the website: Apartment, Bar & Club, Hotel, House, Resort and Spa, Restaurant, Retail, School K-12, Showroom, Theme Dining, Workplace. Element studies include: Artificial Light, Material, Spatial Graphic Design, Transformative Interior.

Methodology

The Intypes Project’s methodological structure produces the first typology of interior design. To Aldo Rossi (1982) “type is the very idea of architecture, closest to its essence”. “Type . . . can most simply be defined as a concept which describes a group of objects characterized by the same formal structure . . . Architecture . . . is not only described by types, it is also produced through them.” Typological studies are the bedrock of architecture and landscape architecture, but until now, none has been written for interior design.

The lifespan of interior design projects is temporally limited. In contract design, an installation remains approximately seven years, less for hospitality design in a good economy. Yet it is vitally important for designers to understand a body of work longitudinally. Such time constraints increase the need for documenting, assessing, and evaluating interior design installations. The project’s methodology draws from interior design’s long-range record of contract work, design and architectural trade magazines, as its primary source material. The dynamic creative dimension of interior design becomes the source of a rich body of knowledge that the Intypes Project strives to capture before it is lost.

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.

Interdisciplinary Research Group

Research for the Intypes Study at Cornell was generated by an interdisciplinary research group comprised of four graduate faculty representing three colleges and twenty-three Master of Arts graduate students in interior design. In addition to Professor Jennings, the Intypes graduate faculty at Cornell included Kathleen Gibson, interior and industrial designer, MA, NCIDQ, Associate Professor, Department of Design and Environmental Analysis; Paula Horrigan, landscape architect, MLA, Associate Professor, Department of Landscape Architecture; Edward David Intemann, lighting designer, MFA, Resident Lighting Designer for the Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts, Senior Lecturer, Department of Performing and Media Arts. Minor members of theses committees also joined the research group, representing the fields of apparel design, architecture, American studies, art history, city and regional planning, film studies, historic preservation, and hotel design.

The website was designed by Roberta Militello, MArch, Instructional Designer and Developer, Academic Technologies.

Suzanne Zorich-Feathers, M.A., videographer, was the Image Manager. A cadre of internationally acclaimed architectural photographers and their representatives granted the project their permissions to use images on the website. Photographers who permissioned multiple photographs include Peter Aaron, Jamie Ardiles-Arce, Hedrich Blessing, Billy Cunningham, Scott Frances, David Joseph, Corina Kayfel, Martin Nicholas Kunz, Peter Mauss, Jordi Miralles, Michael Moran, Tuca Reines, Annie Schlechter, Doug Snower, Paul Warchol.

The Intypes Project was supported by Cornell University’s College of Human Ecology, the Department of Design and Environmental Analysis, the Faculty Innovation in Teaching Program, and Cornell Information Technologies’ Academic Technologies and Media Services Division.

The International Interior Design Association (IIDA) and Interior Design magazine were the Founding Partners.

Dissemination and Impact

The project produces a groundbreaking paradigm shift in which designers come to understand their work as part of a historical, reiterative process. The Intypes website disseminates the research, providing the first searchable, online database for contemporary design with over 600 historic and contemporary photographs.

Cindy Allen, Editor-in-Chief, Interior Design, noted that “this extraordinary undertaking, thirteen years in the making, is sure to invigorate the education process . . ." "The project brings the field of interior design to a whole new level," said Cheryl Durst, executive vice president and CEO of IIDA. “The Intypes approach gives credence and relevance to the history and legacy of interior design as a profession, as a discipline, and as a viable and vital contribution to society as a whole.” The vocabulary aids in describing and criticizing built work. Journal of Interior Design reviewers remarked that the strength of the methodology is its relationship to studio.

Naming, visual representation, and definition represent a translation of design practices into a formalized language accessible to a diversified group of users. The vocabulary aids in criticizing student work, as well as built work. When an Intype term is used without explanation or translation or gloss, it is considered an accepted part of design language. Some architectural firms report using the Intypes terms as a shorthand language.

Project Timeline

1997: Professor Jan Jennings initiates the research at Cornell University as design briefs

2002: Professors Jennings, Paula Horrigan, E. D. Intemann, and Kathleen Gibson develop the interdisciplinary research group

2007-2010: Professors Jennings & Gibson receive Faculty Innovation in Teaching Grants to develop a website

2007: IIDA & Interior Design magazine become sponsors

2009: Free & open website launches

2012: Cornell Presidential Research Scholarship awarded to undergraduate Emily Mitchell for Intypes research

2012: 15^th anniversary of the project & the completion of the 21^st M.A. thesis

2019: Research discontinued upon retirement of Jennings, Horrigan, Gibson

Peer Reviewed Publications:

• Gibson, Kathleen (2014). "Archetypical Interior Practices: Sustainability in Retail Practices." Proceedings of the 2014 International Symposium: Re-Designing Buildings, Seoul, Korea, 2014.

• Jennings, Jan (2007). “A Case for a Typology of Design: The Interior Archetype Project,” Journal of Interior Design 32, No. 3 (2007): 48-68; https://intypes.cornell.edu/uploads/research/47/JID.IntypesArticleWeb.pdf

• Jennings, Jan (2011). “Le Corbusier’s ‘Naked’: ‘Absolute Honesty and (Exhibitionist) Display in Bathroom Settings.” Interiors: Design, Architecture and Culture 2, No. 3 (2011): 307-32; https://intypes.cornell.edu/uploads/research/64/LeCorbusier%27s%20Naked_Article.pdf

• Jennings, Jan (2009). “Naming Design Practices: Producing a Body of Knowledge of the Creative Dimension of Interior Design.” Communicating (by) Design. Brussels, Belgium: Sint Lucas School of Architecture in Brussels, Belgium and Department of Architecture at the Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden, 2009, 145-50; https://intypes.cornell.edu/uploads/research/63/NamingDesignPractices.pdf

• Suh, Joori (2017). “An Interactive Generative Abstraction System for the archeTYpe-based Pre-ideation process (IGATY).” Design Science an International Journal, 3 (e9); https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/design-science/article/an-interactive-generative-abstraction-system-for-the-archetypebased-preideation-process-igaty/E04E2D6D1B5003C58F1F184AC1E76324

• Suh, Joori (2015). “Design as a Malleable Structure: Reframing the Conceptual Understanding of Design and Culture through George Kubler’s Morphological Approach to History of Things.” Journal of Interior Design (JID) Symposium.

Other Publications

• Huffcut, Jamie. “Engaging Academia in the Design Profession.” Healthcare Design 10, No. 8 (Aug. 2010); https://www.healthcaredesignmagazine.com/architecture/engaging-academia-design-profession/

• “Interior Design Professors Develop a New Vocabulary.” Human Ecology 37, No. 2 (Fall 2009): 3; https://issuu.com/humec_comm/docs/vol37_no2_fall2009

• “Naming the Unnamed.” Green Building Design (Nov. 2010): 162; https://issuu.com/greenbuildingdesign/docs/gbd4_issuu_nov10

• Negrea, Sherrie. “Students Coin ‘Unroom’ as Interior Design Lexicon.” Cornell Chronicle (May 28, 2013); http://news.cornell.edu/stories/2013/05/students-coin-unroom-interior-design-lexicon

• Ozier, Levent. “The Intypes: First Searchable, Online Database for Contemporary Design.” Dexinger Newsletter (Aug. 20, 2009).

• Tylevich, Katya. "Mind Games: Modern Design Memes Touch our Brains; But Do We Want to Know How?" Frame 82 (2012): 116-19 (accessed Apr. 11, 2012; now off-line).

References

1. Jan Jennings, "A Case for Typology: The Interior Archetypes Project." Journal of Interior Design 32, No. 3 (2007): 48-68.
2. George Kubler, Shape of Time (1962) in Jennings, "A Case for Typology: The Interior Archetypes Project." Journal of Interior Design 32, No. 3 (2007): 50-52.
3. Rafael Moneo, “On Typology,” Oppositions 13:23 (Summer 1978): 23-45.
4. George Kubler, Shape of Time (1962) in Jennings, "A Case for Typology: The Interior Archetypes Project." Journal of Interior Design 32, No. 3 (2007): 50-52.
5. “Intypes: A New Typology for Design,” Design Matters (Aug. 26, 2009); http://www.iida.org/resources/content/4/9/9/documents/8_26_09_DesignMatters.pdf
6. “Intypes: A New Typology for Design,” Design Matters (Aug. 26, 2009): http://www.iida.org/resources/content/4/9/9/documents/8_26_09_DesignMatters.pdf
7. Jan Jennings, "Naming Design Practices: Producing a Body of Knowledge of the Creative Dimension of Interior Design," Communicating (by) Design (Brussels, Belgium: Sint Lucas School of Architecture in Brussels, Belgium and Department of Architecture at the Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden, 2009), 145-50; https://intypes.cornell.edu/uploads/research/63/NamingDesignPractices.pdf
8. Joe Wilensky, “Newest Rawlings Scholar Captivated by ‘Red Room’ and Shared Language of Interior Design,” Ezra Update, http://ezramagazine.cornell.edu/update/July11/EU.Mitchell.Rawlings.html

External Links

Official Website https://intypes.cornell.edu/

References

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