Journal of Interior Design

Religious architecture has long been integral to world civilization. Amid increasing urban stress and a growing need for spiritual anchoring, Buddhist temples are reemerging as vital place of cultural heritage and inner healing. This study applies Henri Lefebvre’s spatial triad theory and the “sense of place” theory to examine the historical roots of “perceived space” the design intentions within “conceived space,” and the experience of “sacred place” in “lived space.” Using Xi’an’s Daxingshan Temple as a case study, the research combines ethnographic and phenomenological methods, including field observations and interviews. Findings reveal how spatial sequence, synesthetic design, and symbolic ornamentation collectively shape “sacred place” perception. The study ultimately offers insights for creating emotionally resonant and spiritually restorative environments, bridging heritage preservation and contemporary urban well-being.

This article presents the Embodied Sensory Approach (ESA), a structured pedagogical framework developed and refined by the author through nearly a decade of teaching interior design studios. The ESA was created to address the problem of residual ocularcentrism and over-abstraction in interior design by using multisensory engagement as a primary epistemological framework during concept development. Drawing from embodied cognition theory, experiential learning, and multisensory design principles, this framework is intended to address significant gaps in traditional design education by recalibrating the relationship between how spaces tend to be conceptualized during design and how they are actually experienced by users. The ESA is organized into four sequential phases with specific activities that encourage students to engage in structured sensory interactions and then integrate those experiences with design concept development. The method is grounded in existing trends from biophilic design pedagogy, participatory design, and place-grounded design, while extending their insights into a structured series of linked educational activities. Extensive observational evidence from a senior-level interior design studio is presented to demonstrate the implementation and effectiveness of the ESA. Obstacles to implementation, cross-cultural applications, intersections with diverse student learning styles, and future research needs are discussed.

This study explores the impact of culture and gender on hotel guestroom lighting preferences and emotional responses using virtual reality (VR) technology. As VR plays an increasingly important role in hospitality and interior design research, this study examines whether Millennials and Generation Z travelers exhibit significant variations in lighting preferences based on nationality and gender. Researchers implemented a within-group experimental design, allowing participants to experience and compare four distinct lighting conditions in a virtual hotel guestroom. The study recruited 126 participants from three cultural backgrounds—South Korea, the United States, and Iran—and analyzed their preferences and emotional responses using the Pleasure–Arousal–Dominance (PAD) model. Findings reveal a strong preference for warm/dim lighting, which participants described as comfortable and relaxing, whereas they least preferred cool/bright lighting, often perceiving it as harsh and uninviting. While cultural differences did not significantly affect preferred lighting, participants from different backgrounds showed significant variations in their least preferred lighting choices; Iranian males demonstrated the strongest aversion to warm/bright lighting. Gender differences also emerged as female participants expressed a significantly greater dislike for cool/bright lighting. Emotional responses further supported these trends, with participants reporting greater pleasure and relaxation in their preferred lighting conditions. By offering empirical insights into how lighting influences guest experiences, this study highlights the role of cultural and gender variations in hospitality design. The findings provide hotel designers, architects, and hospitality professionals with practical guidance for creating personalized and culturally adaptive lighting environments in hotel guestrooms.

The interior, often relegated to the realm of the apolitical or morally trivial, has remained a blind spot within mainstream political inquiry. This article proposes a theoretical bridge between political theory and the field of experimental and interior architecture, inviting a transdisciplinary reflection on the meaning of space for politics. Rather than prescribing models for organizing domestic or enclosed environments, it proposes an alternative mode of engagement that challenges the canonical assumptions of political theory, a discipline historically intertwined with modern conceptions of citizenship and democracy, and thus with the public sphere as the privileged site of deliberation and protest. Within this framework, the interior has been largely overlooked, and by revisiting this omission, the article aims to open a conversation between political thinking and spatial practice, uncovering how interiors may serve as subtle yet significant sites where politics shapes everyday life.