This workshop met for 1.5 hours each week for 16 weeks, and students and faculty communicated by e-mail between class meetings. Students began the semester by examining the existing, physical library space (11’-6” x 11’-6” x 9’-0”), inventoried its contents, and decided what to keep and what to discard. A traditional materials and resource library holds manufacturers product literature, catalogs, binders and specifications as well as samples from the wide array of interior and exterior building materials. One of the the class goals was to take advantage of the unique characteristics of the two domains, placing the appropriate items in each. Throughout the semester, the process was documented on video.

Students were challenged to consider the characteristics of digital space. How would its existence impact the design of the physical space?. How, in turn, would the digital space be designed as a complement to the physical? Would the experiences of entering and navigating the spaces be identical?

The class spent time considering which products and manufacturers’ materials to include in the existing space. They researched which major furniture manufacturers already had their own web sites and which catalogues had been miniaturized onto CD-ROM. Technology reduced the need for catalog shelf space in the physical library but now demanded a place for a computer workstation. The class members realized that library users would not be duplicating cut-sheets and specifications from paper literature, but they would be outputting directly from the web or CD, requiring a printer instead of a copier. And the fifth-floor library would require a scanner so that actual material samples, used for the study and creation of material boards, now also could be dematerialized as textures to be mapped onto 3-dimensional computer model surfaces.

One of the greatest assets of the virtual world is its limitless information space. This dimension provides the necessary room for otherwise bulky 3-ring binders and catalogs. With links to manufacturers and specifications, the physical library is freed to do what it does best, become a showroom for tactile materials. Materials can be touched, smelled, almost tasted - they can be seen in different lighting conditions and in various juxtapositions.

The final design of the virtual space is not a replica of the actual space nor is the virtual space a substitution for the tactile environment; however, the virtual world does parallel the experience of the physical space, making navigation and research for the user easy, comprehensible and complete. The spatial sequences leading to the information in both parts of the library run on parallel tracks. Walking upstairs at the Newbury Street building, one approaches a door into the library. On the web, the splash page becomes the threshold into the open door into the virtual room. Once inside the physical space, the visitor sees a series of shelves with materials placed in the standard CSI (Construction Specification Institute) arrangement. Crossing the threshold of the homepage, the virtual shelves hold a set of icons which represent the different specification classifications. Icons include a shovel for site, a brick for masonry, a cement truck for concrete and a light bulb for lighting and electricity. In the tactile realm, the visitor walks over to the shelf that holds the samples of interest. By clicking on the virtual icon, a series of books appears which represent subsets of each major specification division. In either environment, a person moves from the general to the specific. Finally, the information is at one’s fingertips, either with samples on the work surface or with the student-researched web-papers or manufacturers’ information on the screen.

In both realms the workshop students built at full scale, through hands-on construction in the woodshop and the possibilities provided by new technology. They succeeded in building the framework for others to use and update. The upkeep of both sites of the Materials/Resource Library is of critical importance to the School of Interior Design. This responsibility has been assigned to the Methods and Materials class in the Fall and the Textiles class in the Spring.

The design of web space is a natural extension of the spatial realm of design currently practiced by interior designers. They bring to the digital world their understanding of multidimensionality - the x-y-z coordinates of design plus the element of time - which is so crucial to the successful design of physical interiors. This is a topic that the School of Interior Design continues to explore. The design workshop was the first in an ongoing series of interior design studios in which students are asked to design complementary physical and digital spaces. We invite you to explore the Virtual Material/Resource Library and then to visit our other physical/virtual investigations.

The School of Interior Design thanks Sandy Zimmerman, Administrative Assistant to Interior Design, for her work on this site. The School is particularly grateful to Bill Phillips for his endless energy and creativity in helping coordinate this web effort and to the BAC Education Committee whose EDCO grant to Bill has aided in the launching of this web site.

We welcome your comments: interior.design@the-bac.edu