Staging Poe: A Narrative Approach to Atmosphere in a First–Year Design Studio

This paper explores how to begin interior architecture education and provides a fertile ground on which students can tackle design departures. Narratives are studied as a vehicle and an opportunity for self–expression and discovery for first–year students to explore and produce atmospheres. The project Staging Poe draws its narrative inspirations from Edgar Allan Poe's poems. It proposes to approach atmosphere through a narrative method, by translating words into materiality. Narratives of literary works are proposed to novice students as starting points while stepping into the not–yet–familiar ways of the design process. Staging Poe further envisions a first–year design studio rooted in ongoing contemporary debates on the theory and practice of atmosphere and materiality in tandem with technology. The objective is to inspire a new generation of interior architecture students. This paper begins by discussing the theory of atmospheres and the potential role of narratives in exploring atmosphere within the Basic Design studio. Next, we examine Poe's The Philosophy of Composition as a guide to translating narrative into atmosphere before discussing the design of the Staging Poe project and the two consecutive phases of its methodology. Student progress is reviewed through an analysis of weekly reports and followed by an examination of the students’ overall performance in the course. The findings of the analysis demonstrate how the structure of the studio advances student design thinking and performance in relation to their understanding of atmosphere and its material and quasimaterial agents. The study concludes that there is room for the exploration of alternative and field–specific methods in the education of interior architecture discipline.