Interiors is a slippery discipline. Among all designed artefacts, Interiors themselves are uniquely ephemeral and hard to define. The practice of Interiors is relatively unregulated. The history of Interiors is patchy and contested. The theoretical basis of Interiors is largely unexplored in comparison to those of other disciplines. How, therefore, might we speculate about the role, validity and purpose of Interiors in the 21st century?

Interiors practitioners, academics, researchers, and policy makers require a critical platform in which Interior Design is central to the debate, rather than, as is usual, on the periphery of other design and architectural symposia. A new body, Interiors Forum Scotland (IFS), exists in order to promote such speculation about the future (and therefore the past and the present) of Interiors.

IFS curated an exhibition and major international conference entitled Thinking Inside the Box, Interiors in the 21st Century: New Visions, New Horizons & New Challenges at The Lighthouse - Scotland's Centre for Architecture, Design and the City. The conference proceedings are due for publication this autumn.

Further information about the project can be found at: www.interiorsforumscotland.com