The contemporary interior landscape

Interior design has taken on an essential role in transforming the quality of the spaces where we dwell and spend our lives. It is no longer a discipline limited only to furnishing spaces. Today, interior design is a major cultural and professional field, ready to take on brand-new phenomena of contemporary society. The emergence of demand for inhabitable and hospitable spaces gives interior designers the difficult, yet strategic task of giving rise to a new “civilization of dwelling”. This civilization should be equipped to spotlight the anthropological aspects of habitat, offer new ways of improving, equipping and using private and public spaces, brands, and services, including by drawing on fresh forms of cross-pollination between design and artistic disciplines. Through the contributions of many key players in contemporary design and teachers and researchers of the Interior Design Degree Program at the Politecnico di Milano, the book offers wide-ranging ideas on the latest frontiers of themes that have been explored by the (re)definition of the educational plan of the degree program, both in teaching methods and in its responsiveness to input from the outside world. The themes chosen are emblematic of a broader panorama, one in constant flux, which the book represents with maps like an archipelago of subjects where "waves" of further possible connections are constantly refracted. "Ideas in dialogue" on topics are interwoven with "side notes" and an extensive repertoire of images from designs and research of different teachings. They highlight the plurality of perspectives and interpretations of a vast cultural horizon, as well as the generally a-methodological identity of Italian design. This is a scenario in ceaseless motion, which the book seeks to recount through a graphic design that is fluid and extremely hypertextual.