Inside Inside: a curated database of interiors and related fields

The website Insideinside.org is a reference source that presents an online curated database of historic and contemporary interiors.  It provides a quick tool for initial research and avenues to further explore by including images of rooms, floor plans, and elevations, maker, date, materials, bibliographic resources, and related websites. 

The platform allows for interiors across the globe to be more easily accessible. The website proposes relationships between interiors that might not be obvious. This is accomplished in three ways: (1) the format brings attention to a variety of cultures and histories, outside of a chronological timeline (2) the site is organized through categories that define topics such as art, nature, history, fiction, and science to expand our consideration of the many ways we are affected by interior space, and (3) the special curated section explores how the website itself can be used for research needs. The overarching goal is to invite the broader community to actively participate in a discussion of interior design, to be accessible to academics, designers, and laypeople.

Johanne Woodcock, Associate Professor of Interior Design, created www.insideinside.org  in 2010. From the start the project has benefited from the support of the SCE Deans.  Johanne’s creative work is currently focused on a study of how painted walls can impact environments (johannewoodcock.com). This work grew out of a study she began, as a curator, on the website Inside Inside.

We have benefited from the support of the SCE Deans and ADHT Faculty. In 2017 Sarah Lichtman, Director of the Design History and Curatorial Studies Program and Jennifer Cohlman Bracchi, Research Librarian at the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum, joined the Inside Inside Leadership Team.  Since then, several Parsons Interior Design Faculty, Cotter Christian, Nadia Elrokhsy, Michele Gorman, Yu Nong Khew, Alfred Zollinger, have joined this collaboration.  

Funding from The New School, Parsons, and SCE has supported the development of Inside Inside. Parsons students from the Schools of Art and Design History and Theory, Constructed Environments, Design Strategies and Art, Media and Technology, have actively participated as editors, historians, designers, computer developers and graphic designers.