Interdisciplinarity

Definition

Interdisciplinarity here is not a buzzword but a defended structural property of a field: the deliberate gathering of texts across disciplines when "the linear historical model seemed inapplicable, and thematic structures too constraining" (p. 8). Taylor & Preston defend the field of interior design theory as "plural, multiplicitous and interdisciplinary" (p. 10), sourcing material from cultural geography, sociology, anthropology, philosophy and gender studies that "offers positions and insights that operate beyond architectural canons and interior design's marginalisation within that discourse" (p. 6). The concept has two working components: (1) an epistemological component — following Borden & Rendell's nine epistemological tendencies, theory is defined expansively enough to admit advice literature, historical analysis of a place or activity, and observational texts (p. 9); and (2) a methodological component — texts of different writing styles and genres do not form "an equal and level 'reading' field," yet their juxtaposition is a deliberate act of field-constitution (p. 10). The matrix (rhizomatic-matrix) is the practical device that makes interdisciplinarity navigable rather than chaotic.

Key Thinkers

• Mark Taylor & Julieanna Preston — interdisciplinarity as field-constitution: correspondence between "seemingly unrelated research and practice," lateral movement "between existing systems and categories" (p. 8).
• (Related, not yet paged: Iain Borden & Jane Rendell — the nine epistemological tendencies of theory in critical discourse, Intersections (2000) — see log.)

Related Concepts

• Empirical Methods — the wiki's other methodological corrective; interdisciplinarity names the epistemic breadth, empiricism the evidentiary discipline.
• Everyday Life — itself a genuinely interdisciplinary field (philosophy, sociology, geography, cultural studies); the two share the refusal of single-discipline canons.
• Interiority — the interdisciplinary cluster Taylor & Preston name "among philosophy and psychology."
• Rhizomatic Matrix — the methodological device that operationalises interdisciplinarity.
• Partition of Space — the anthology's payoff case: a social-anthropological text doing interior-theory work no architectural canon could supply.

Source Support

Sources in the wiki that discuss this concept:

• Proximities (Taylor & Preston 2006) — the defence of the field as "plural, multiplicitous and interdisciplinary"; Borden & Rendell's expansive definition of theory; unequal reading fields (pp. 8–10).
• (Re)constructing Histories (Hollis 2018) — the field's interdisciplinary audiences: the founding books addressed "an audience of architects and interior designers" (Scott, Brooker, Stone) and "a more academic audience" of interior design (Pile, Rice, Sparke); their authors were art-school studio teachers and design theoreticians/historians rather than architects — the discipline's literature was interdisciplinary in its producers as well as its theory.
• The Partition of Space (Ardener 2006) — the demonstration: "As a cross-cultural researcher of anthropological issues, Shirley Ardener reminds us that space defines the people in it, and reflexively, people define space" (editorial preamble, p. 15) — an anthropologist's text placed first in the reader's theory section, supplying interior design with boundary rules, muting and social maps that no architectural treatise offers.
• Inside Looking In: The Prospect of the Aspect (McClure & McClure 2018) — the structural diagnosis from inside the design fields: "The design disciplines have been isolated professionally and legally. The benefit has been that each discipline has been able to develop its expertise, but the cost has been a built environment that is increasingly separated from its site, its context, and society" — with the isolation's built result ("Rooms could be just about rooms, buildings just about buildings, and landscapes just about landscapes") and the program ("Is this a call for a more collaborative and cross-disciplinary environment? Absolutely"). Where Taylor & Preston defend interdisciplinarity as epistemic richness, the McClures make it a condition of the built environment's persistence — disciplinary isolation "led to very static and singular objects and spaces." See prospect-of-the-aspect, hermetic-seal.
• Productions: spatial practices, processes, and effects (Odom 2018) — interdisciplinarity as a practice property rather than a field-constitution strategy: Odom's production-oriented practices range "from interior design, architecture, and installation art to hybrid art/interior architecture," and the chapter's methodological move is to refuse the boundaries the other sources negotiate — "we will not make clear distinctions or draw clear disciplinary boundaries between these effects-oriented practices." The six-point POP definition makes the transdisciplinary explicit: POPs are "collaborative; they seek transdisciplinary connections and understand potentials of linking diverse ranges of connection," and "extensive, meaning they seek conditions to test processes that may fall outside of traditional disciplinary boundaries." Where Taylor & Preston's interdisciplinarity gathers texts across disciplines and the McClures diagnose the cost of disciplinary isolation, Odom's is enacted in practice — transdisciplinarity as the POP's working condition. See production-oriented-practices, hybrids.
• Why this, why now? The case for interior architecture (Marinic 2018) — interdisciplinarity as the discipline's motive and its pedagogical circuit: interior architecture as "an incremental maturation process motivated by intersectional inquiries surrounding spatiality," and the loop-back through which interdisciplinary practice returns as curriculum — "the agency of interior architecture loops back into the academy to challenge how we teach the next generation a broader knowledge base which supports higher levels of expertise in spatial design," with "innovative forms of teaching and scholarship… endeavor[ing] to reform the longstanding biases of both architecture and interior design." The chapter's six-part research agenda (adaptive reuse, historic preservation, resource remobilization, ecology, digital fabrication, speculation) names the interdisciplinary research base as "rich streams" in "a global new wave" — interdisciplinarity no longer as field-constitution (Taylor & Preston) or boundary-refusal (Odom) but as the discipline's engine of maturation. See design-studio-pedagogy, adaptive-reuse.
• source-notes/brooker-2018-dialectics-of-appropriation

Open Questions

• Does juxtaposition across unequal genres produce genuine cross-disciplinary insight ("productive leaps generated by rules," p. 8), or only an eclecticism that papers over incommensurable epistemologies?
• How does disciplinary plurality relate to disciplinarity's benefits — does interior design gain theoretical standing by borrowing, or remain "marginalised within" architectural discourse (p. 6)?
• Can the nine epistemological tendencies (Borden & Rendell) be used as a checklist for evaluating the wiki's own sources?
• Hollis's founding literature split its audiences (architects vs. academic designers) — is interdisciplinarity in a young discipline a sign of theoretical poverty (nothing of one's own to read) or the constitutive richness Taylor & Preston claim?