A generation ago scientific ideas floated free in the air, as historians gazed up at them in wonder and admiration. From time to time, historians agreed, the ideas that made up the body of scientific truth became incarnate: they were embedded into the fleshly forms of human culture and attached to particular times and places. How this incarnation occurred was a great mystery. How could spirit be made flesh? How did the transcendent and the timeless enter the forms of the (...) mundane and the contingent? Platonist and providentialist perspectives offered ways of speaking about the mystery, but, in general, it remained unresolved at the core of orthodox idealist historiography.1. (shrink)

This article explores tacit knowledge of lived experience and how this form of knowledge relates to design research. It investigates how interior designers interpret user lived experiences when creating designed environments. The article argues that user experience is the basis of a form of knowledge that is useful for designers. The theoretical framework proposed in the article examines the nature of user experience and how it can be utilized in the design process. The study of lived experiences is contextualized within (...) aesthetic, subjective, and functional aspects of the interior design process, which requires users to express their meanings and needs. A case study is described to illustrate the various stages of this process. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to investigate a series of issues around the primary theme of value constructions and the ways that these influence the construction of interior spaces and impact on its occupants. The ways in which knowledge is disseminated currently in our society and the noticeable absence of the female voice in that knowledge construction is perpetuated in social relations. Spatial designs create an envelope that formalizes these relations and create symbols of' status, hierarchy and power at (...) the expense of voices of collaboration and experience. Secondary issues about the absence of female voice in the underlying values that shape space are also studied, as they have evolved historically and as these exist in today's social and economic climate. Theoretical themes are woven around examples of situations in pedagogy and the practice of interior design and architecture. (shrink)