Master’s in Interior and Living Design

The MA in Interior and Living Design is offered during the following terms:
September 2012 – August 2013
January 2013 – December 2013

The Department was born with the objective to work on the whole universe of urban experience. In this perspective, the department has created a training project of excellence able to reflect on the changes and transformations of the built space, promoting a permanent research activity for design models and solutions that are appropriate and innovative.

Domus Academy has always had a wide and multidisciplinary approach to design research and teaching, which makes it possible to have a wide vision on design. The Master in Interior and Living Design intends to focus on the need to explore all aspects that concern design: from the most technical to the most intuitive ones, and to combine them in order to contemplate the various nuances of meaning in the words to live, to dwell, to use. Milan offers a wide range of historical and contemporary stimulating examples; its long tradition in experimenting and finding practical solutions to the problems of living and dwelling makes it unique.

Program Objectives: The aim pursued in the course is to provide a cultural knowledge that is half way between the arts and other disciplines and that represents the access code to the new world, and which is adequate to develop a synergic project – similar to design direction – that will always take into account its material and immaterial aspects. Domus Academy’s teaching approach is to foster the students to have an aptitude for the problem setting approach and to develop their own poetical language by exploring, experiencing and constantly questioning the meaning of their own work.

This program is geared towards young graduates or professionals wishing to broaden or improve their abilities.

Photoshop
3D Studio Max or Rhinoceros or Sketchup (a program for 3D modeling)
Autocad or Vector
Flash

Azienda Ospedaliera Sant’Orsola – Bologna
Banca Albertini Syz
Camper
Coin
Domina Hotels Group
Dondup
Fnac
Fondazione Valore Italia
Gabetti Property Solutions
HHD
Hines
IB Rebinetterie
Incoss/Inglass
Ipe Cavalli
La Marchesina
Natuzzi
Veuve Cliquot

The Master course in Interior and Living Design aims at creating a new profession: a spaces and services designer who knows how to combine technical/design knowledge with a solid cultural background and with the strategic ability to identify new user scenarios. A designer who is aware and interested in any process as well as in its management over time.

Selected Companies where Alumni currently work:
Carlo Colombo, Milan
Fabio Novembre, Milan
Giovannoni Design, Milan
Matteo Thun, Milan
Michael S. Smith Inc, Los Angeles
ORMS Architecture, London
Patricia Urquiola, Milan
Rafael Viñoly Architects, Los Angeles
Sergio Calatroni, Milan
Studio Laviani, Milan
Studio Boeri, Milan

The idea of a project focusing on the topic of hotel typology comes from the aspiration to rethink the ways of hosting and accommodating people and to consider them from different perspectives.

Therefore, based on this approach, hotels in general offer a typology that is virtually unique, where the spatial hierarchy delineates a series of independent microcosms that are enclosed yet interrelated, contained yet containing at the same time, much like Chinese boxes.

By using this approach, each level of intimacy is correlated to a different scale of the project and the hotel guests can experience them all and choose the modalities and durations of their stay:

• 01_The hotel (building) defines, within its context, an urban or extra-urban PLACE that is “external” and “territorial”;
• 02_The reception hall is a public DOMAIN where people pass through, and that is accessible both to hotel guests and non-guests (or guests to be);
• 03_Restaurants, bars, lounges, and meeting rooms are social SPACES but included within the hotel;
• 04_Corridors, elevators, and stairways are semi-social connection INTERSPACES and, more importantly, they act as filters between the entirely public and the entirely private spheres. They are rarified and undefined spaces, holing a certain tension due to the transition from a public situation (“others see us”) to a situation of total intimacy in one’s own room (“no one sees us”). They are spaces filled with glances, silences, and the white noises of the climate control system. It is no coincidence that, for the most part, these are the most anonymous and banal areas of every hotel. An excellent starting point for a design project.
• 05_The customer’s room is the private CONTAINER. A guest enters it with all his belongings and tends to adapt it to his own lifestyle, according to the personal potential for adaptability and change. Here, we clearly are in a situation of considerable intimacy.
• 06_Inside the room the maximum level of intimacy is represented by a series of intimate OBJECTS, such as the bed and the bathtub that, for a certain period of time, belong to the most private portion of the guest’s life while still being the hotel’s property

The Competition: Participants must develop a project focusing on points 5 and 6 described above, and investigating
the topic of the room and the furnishing/objects contained in it. The project should be developed with no information about anything outside the room. This will make it possible to completely rethink the typology of the room, seen as a temporary “container” for a person and his belongings. Starting from common perspective, which is usually merely concerned with space layout and optimization, each project must define, from the very beginning, a conceptually compelling project idea. This must also be able to overcome the constraints of feasibility and functionality, which will later be imposed. The room must be designed both as a container of the person and as a module contained within a larger structure, i.e. the hotel. Therefore, certain characteristics such as aggregability, modularity, and mobility should be taken into consideration and both the room interior and exterior should be designed, almost as if it were a large “object” inside a larger space. Each participant is invited to consider also different typologies than that of the hotel, such as trailers, vending machines, plug-in furnishing systems (prefabricated bathrooms, closet-kitchens), workstations in open spaces, containers, train compartments and ship cabins, seats that can become beds for first-class airplane passengers: all of these may represent valuable starting points for participants to create “intimate” spaces that are temporary and unconventional. The projects must define a “basic room” which, thanks to a series of “accessories” to be added or removed, can constitute a multi-star hotel that can meet the needs of low-budget customers as well as luxury travelers.

Materials Required:

• Written description of the project: maximum 3 A4 pages;
• Project boards: 2 A3 boards;
• Curriculum vitae of the participant: maximum 1 A4 page;
• Statement of purpose: maximum 5 lines on an A4 page.

The candidates are asked to send their materials in one sole file in .PDF format. Any further attached material will be considered a plus and will be evaluated by the jury.

Prizes:

• One scholarship covering 70% of the total tuition fee of the Master Program.
• One scholarship covering 50% of the total tuition fee of the Master Program.
• One scholarship covering 30% of the total tuition fee of the Master Program.

Deadline: Electronic entries must be sent to: micaela@saiprograms no later than May 4, 2012. Candidates will be informed about the results of the competition by e-mail on May 18th, 2012.