Spatial Design & Generative Processes:
The Plastic Home
Date: 10 January 2023 | Sophie Nghi Le
"Spatial design is the design of human environments, particularly interior environments. Working from the inside out, spatial designers think about how spaces feel, how they are organised and how they might enrich the lives of those experiencing them" (AUT, n.d.). Space is a physical or virtual location. People interact with a space making it a place with identity and meaning. Time is the factor that reveals our making of a place and our integration to it. Generative processes is the collaboration between human and AI to generate designs based on a set of rules set by the designer (McClintock, 2020).
Below is the mind-map I created as the starting point of my research regarding spatial design & generative processes and from there I was about to funnel it down to 4 key ideas that I was interested in developing further:
Idea A: The Immersive Experience Wellness Room
The immersive experience has been successfully implemented by many venues using today's advanced technology. Below are a few examples of immersive experience in real life:
The "Patient's Dream" (Fabi et al., 2022) is a study that focuses on proving that virtual reality experience can ease psychological distress, pain, anger and anxiety; as well as reduce asthenia outcomes and improve life quality of cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. An immersive experience can create a sense of absorption in the virtual environment and distancing the patient from reality, thus is recommended as a non-pharmacological intervention to aid the treatment of cancer. Another study evaluating the effects on quality of care and stress in patients and staff resulting from a new spatial design for a psychiatric inpatient ward has implied the major role of spatial design in improving health and wellness and positive interaction amongst users of a space (Lindgren et al., 2018). Living spaces are evolving in harmony with consumer tech and integrating tech to spatial design is one of the key trends in interior design of today and tommorow. Immersive multisensorial environments are 'the next big thing', as they bridge the gap between the physical and virtual worlds (Dickinson, 2022).
Based on these researches, I sketched an immersive experience room that can be used for health and wellness purposes. The walls, ceiling and floor in this room are screens that can show different scenes according to the preferences or needs of the users which are learnt by AI through an app .
The user may input data of how they feel or the scenes they want to be immersed in on an app and the data will be used to generate the right environment that would bring comfort and wellness to the user. Apart from tangible materials such as the screens and the building itself, the immersive experience and the saved data or knowledge of the users collected through the app would last over time, making this spatial design somewhat eternal.
I have created a mockup of the app interface, sample scenarios and visuals of the immersive experience treatment room:
Besides the benefits mentioned, two of immersive experience's biggest adverses were that it can cause motion sickness and estrangement from reality. White VR motion sickness can now be minimised with the use of new technology and extra devices (Jung et al., 2017); estrangement from reality is an issue that is still being investigated (Spiers et al., 2022). Being only experimental up until today, virtual reality environment (VRE), especially in health and wellness use as per my idea A, harbours uncertain results. Cognitive flexibility will be enhanced to experience imaginaries of future possible worlds; but estrangement and alienation (or users' refusal to go back to reality) would be human race's next big dilemma if VRE was to be widely used in our daily life in the future.
Idea B: Our future home in space
Idea B is about a fully mobile home that can move and reassemble and attach itself to a rocket launcher or a space station. This idea of bringing our Earth-home with us when we leave our planet comes at the time when relocation to space or other planets has been discussed in details (Drake, 2016). This future seems to be no longer fictional as our population is expanding at an alarming rate and we are constantly looking for resources and habitable environment to exploit in order to secure the continuation of our race (Population Explorer, n.d.)
Below are some visuals of how I imagine our future home away from Earth would be designed. My sizing of this home closely follows the review of the Martian House (Moore, 2022). I took inspiration from today's tiny home trend and used the programme "Home By Me" managed by Dassault Systèmes (a reputable company that develops 3D generative design softwares) to generate interior design for a 30m2 mobile loft home that is lightweight, compact, versatile and adaptable to alien climate. As I personally have no knowledge in the aerospace engineering field, idea B is purely imaginative.
The special features of this space home include:
─ Furnishings made from lightweight materials such as: rattan (dressers), foam (bed), reycled plastic (table, chairs), paper (lighting) ,and faux stone (bathroom).
─ Metal walls and ceilings that quickly heats and insulates the home on extreme cold alien climates.
─ Big wall openings, windows and glass ceiling that maximise daily sunlight intake.
─ Specimens of Earth plants that generate oxygen for the indoor.
Data input into Home By Me to generate this design (in order of input):
Floors: 2 | Floor 1 Area: 30m2 | Floor 1 Ceiling Height: 250cm | Floor 2 Area: 16m2 | Floor 2 Ceiling Height: 200cm
Rooms: 3 | Bedrooms: 1 | Bathrooms: 1 | Living room: 1
I enjoyed working with Home By Me as the AI generation from this software ends at simple and basic floor planning. Hence, the role of the designer such as myself is not entirely taken over by machine. I could still freely create, make changes and decision on the final result; I take more control of the design process instead of letting AI take over my design fully.
Below are photos of my inspiration for idea B: the futuristic mobile home by designer Encho Enchev (McNulty-Kowal, 2021). While I like that Encho's design carries our familiar home interior to a different planet, the thought that we are not far off from this vision of a dystopian future is rather terrifying. Encho's mobile home and project Martian House are two of many space projects that prove human's incredible ability to engineer for survival and our adaptation to the most alien environments. However, it leaves a disturbing question that we have not yet found a solid answer to: Should we prioritise protecting our current home from depletion before we seek a way to relocate to a new one?
Idea C: Indochine Interior Then VS Now
During six decades of colonisation since the 1880s, the French brought major changes to life in Vietnam and part of those changes was the introduction of Indochine interior (Adorn Museum, 2022). 'Indochine' was used to call the South East Asia region under French colonisation and just like its name, this styling features the meshing of South East Asian and French interior design from 1880s to 1960s. Main features of Indochine interior include: the frequent use of washed out colour jade and yellow; wood, tiles, bamboo or rattan materials; and letters, patterns or animal motifs from South East Asian culture (Adorn Museum, 2022; V Scale Architecture, 2021).
Idea C mainly focuses on exploring different memories and emotions attached to one particular style of spatial design such as the Indochine style.
Vietnamese literature from the Indochine era spoke about working as 'coolies' or 'cu li' in Vietnamese, which translates to slavery (Vu, 2015). Being in this place and time evoked feelings of a hard time, of division, war and the uncertainty of the arrival of Western culture. The welcoming and mixing of Eastern and Western products and lifestyle divided Vietnam in two (Pham, 1991), with Northern Vietnam and its government clutching tightly to communist ideologies, branding anything foreign as an attempt to destroy Vietnamese tradition and culture. Meanwhile, from Central to the South of Vietnam where the French occupied, people were living amongst a new culture, a new language; and the traditional Viet homes in this part were starting to change. The fear and uncertainty, however, was always present.
INDOCHINE THEN - photos taken of businesses that has successfully preserved its interior since the 1960s.
INDOCHINE NOW - photos of private homes and businesses in Vietnam recreating the Indochine interior style for commercial purposes.
As a designer with Vietnamese heritage, I have long been fascinated with my country's history, especially when it is reflected through Vietnamese arts and design throughout the ages. Having lived and worked in Central Vietnam for six years (particularly in the creative arts and tourism industry), I am aware that the today's interior trend that is Indochine, is part of Vietnam's branding for tourism and a big selling point due to its popularity amongst the Vietnamese post-boomers generations who are now the main target market and trend appreciators. Today's unique and positive emotions associated with an Indochine space have proven the great capability of one single space to progress and change with time while still caching many different memories and experiences. The beauty I found in Indochine spatial design is that the environment almost acts as a cross-generational time capsule that carries memories of the war of the past and with time, carefully spins them into better experiences to cherish today. With this notion, I want to showcase my development of Indochine design as part of my exploration of spatial design in relation to time.
Below are photos of stationeries and the event space that I designed and set up for a wedding celebration. The clients were born in the 70s when the second Vietnam War had just ended. Wanting to bring Indochine styling and nostalgia to this celebration, the concept I created transformed the restaurant space into the 'East meets West era'. This set up was done in 2017 and unlike the other speculative designs in this brief, I am aware that this is more of a design for commercial use.
Elements of Indochine in my design:
─ A lot of symmetrical pattern motifs; Chinese letter motifs; South East Asian animal print silk fabric; colour of gold and yellow; French vintage furniture; wooden rustic furniture; a Honda 60s cub motorbike; bamboo beads curtains; a photo of the couple in the style of an old black & white foreign movie poster.
While Indochine styling could be used as a case study to spatial design in relation to time, I had difficulties finding its existence on the AI open source library. I have found no example of Indochine interior design being part of machine learning, and so, despite being one of my design strengths, I choose to not further develop idea C and will revisit this idea when I have more information or access to an AI generator that registers 'Indochine'.
Idea D: The Plastic Home - Why Plastic?
Idea D came along while I was doing my research on the loop of recyclability of different materials used in interior design. I was interested in the idea of recycling existed material into new designs and I was introduced to the concept of a material library or a bank consisting of recycled materials. The People Pavilion by architects from Overtreders W, bureau SLA - an entire building made out of reused material borrowed from a material bank (Pintos, 2019) - shares similar principles to my idea D and has reinforced the possibility that a home made entirely of reused materials can be our next big solution.
So why plastic? In the early 20th century, plastic, a lightweight, durable, inexpensive and easy-to-modify material, was discovered and quickly dominated households globally (Andrady, 2009). While the continuous production and disposal of plastic is proven to be harmful to the environment, its durability and moulding flexibility can be utilised as an attempt to curb plastic waste and minimise the damage already done.
Below are photos of hotel amenities and furniture made from recycled plastic co-curated by Potato Head (Bali, Indonesia) and architecture studio OMA's managing partner David Gianotten (Hobson, 2022) as an answer to the island's growing plastic waste issue.
My aim for this brief is to find the most suitable and relevant concept that can be developed as part of my research and design portfolio. In the beginning ideation stage, I chose to generate as many ideas as I could and eventually funnelled it down to one idea to develop in depth:
My reasoning for choosing to work with idea D is that it fits into one theme that I have been drawing into since the start of this course. While the potential and my interest in all four ideas are the same, my overall design practice tends to sway into the direction of recyclability and sustainability, especially the use of alternative materials. Looking back at my latest projects: The Glass Nursery and The Paper Lamp; it is my intention to add one more alternative material to my design portfolio centering on using materials that allow for a loop of recyclability or replacement of resources that are soon to be depleted. And for this reason I have chosen to investigate (re)using plastic material in my spatial design project.
Based on what I learnt about Potato Head and OMA's project, I was able to produce a simple 2D mock up of a dining room fully furnished with recycled plastic in the colour palette of autumn/fall. The method of grouping recycled plastic into colour groups and melt them creates the terrazzo effect that is a recent interior design trend. All furnishings can also be re-melted and re-moulded overtime to create new designs and trends. The possibilities of what we can build from this method is extensive as users can easily 'melt & mould' recycled plastic into any shape or form we want.
Idea D: The Plastic Home - AI generated modelling
To execute idea D, I tested Point-E which generates intriguing 3D point clouds from text input and found that it is not entirely suitable for my project. I have also read about another programme called Magic 3D which seems to be a better choice but it is not yet released: 'Magic3D is a new text-to-3D content creation tool that creates 3D mesh models with unprecedented quality. Together with image conditioning techniques as well as prompt-based editing approach, we provide users with new ways to control 3D synthesis, opening up new avenues to various creative applications' (Lin et al.,2022).
I have chosen to use Sloyd.ai (Sloyd.ai, n.d.) to generate models of furniture for my plastic home after extensive research into the market of AI generating 3D. I personally have found sloyd.ai to be the most well made with generations that are more fitting to the final design outcome I hope to achieve.
If idea D is to be implemented in the future when AI learning advances to the point of needing minimal intervention from the designer, I speculate that generating your own recycled plastic furnitures will result in even more alien aesthetic. Within a few taps, home users can easily generate their (re)'melt & mould' projects and finalise them with help from manufacturers. The future plastic home would almost be built entirely by AI; as it allows for random generation of shapes (within a set of rules to ensure product feasibility, practicality and functionality) leading to the ambiguity of the final design outcome. This is what I have explored before in earlier project: the Paper Lamp.
Sloyd.ai is easy to use even without extensive architecture and engineering knowledge but being newly developed, its library is still currently limited. However, it is a good starting point to grasp the basics of AI randomised design generation, below are randomised designs of recycled plastic chair, table, lighting and shelving unit generated by sployd.ai:
Below are visuals of one dining room in different times, to refresh the space, the homeowner may choose to melt these furniture, and send to the manufacturer to remould into a new designs generated by sloyd.ai:
...And 10 years later in the same dining room.
While I cannot foretell the implications this has on the value of homes in the future. I can predict that furnishing a space with recycled plastic material is a lot more versatile and affordable for the next generations. We would view recycled plastic differently when we live in a space made from it, in the same way that we view furnishings made from wood or concrete now. My other positive prediction coming from a marketing background would be that manufacturers and brands would try to promote recycled plastic furnishings to be the next trend; and that will be beneficial in aiding the changing of mindsets of consumers.
The idea of melting away existed furniture and remaking them into new ones represents the great loop of recyclability; however, on a negative note, while we keep melting furnitures away to mould into new ones, we would also melt away the memories that are held within that space. Furnitures carry information of a space that the retrosplenial cortex in our brain registers as episodic memories (Meyer, 2014). So the next question that needs an answer to would be: how would we preserve identity and memories within this versatile plastic home.
Idea D: The Plastic Home - Evaluation & Implications
All the ideas I have explored throughout this brief have shared one end purpose which is design for the wellbeing and continuation of our human race; and that is also the main purpose of spatial design. The research and design process that I have worked through during this brief has been particularly beneficial to my own practice as a novice interior designer because I have gathered great information to reflect upon while starting my interior design career with said purpose in mind. Recent reports of future design trends are great sources to inform today's designers of their practice:
─ 'Materials and products that sidestep the need for power and optimise resources will resonate with architects and designers looking to future-proof their projects, as well as brands seeking features that appeal to consumers aiming to combine cost savings and sustainability.' (Imms & WGSN Interiors Team, 2022)
─ And about the future of home interior 2030s: 'The importance of the home and its role as a place of comfort, sanctuary and protection will grow, fuelled by evolving lifestyle trends and disruptions such as climate change, home ownership and material scarcity.' (Dickinson, 2022)
My research and design journey has led me to recognising the bigger picture that my practice is aiming towards: sustainability in the interior design industry and our abilities as designers to make an impact on educating and changing users' mindset in order to maintain resources and our wellbeing in the long run. I would like to address this big picture throughout my career as a designer and I aim to carry these responsibilities and to always design with our wellbeing in mind.
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