The critical role of fragments in spatial discourse stems from the complex relationship between fragment and whole. The paradox of fragments offers a deeper understanding of how our architecture, interior, and urban systems are constructed by the presence of fragments and whole and, more importantly, by their interrelationship. Understanding fragments is more than just understanding them as independent spatial entities; it establishes knowledge of how fragments are constructed, connected, and negotiated. This issue of Interiority presents a collection of inquiries on fragments within various everyday interior contexts and representations, demonstrating the emergence of spatialities that celebrate interconnection possibilities beyond the independent parts. The articles in this issue present inquiries into fragments, demonstrating the role of fragments in constructing relationships, building narratives and layers of interconnections, and establishing deeper meanings in various interior phenomena and representational media.

Contemporarily, a flood of digital interior architectural imagery has emerged of spaces developed for the Metaverse, a forthcoming immersive 3D virtual world. These spaces are not bound by the conventions of architectural practice nor the demands of the physical world, providing an opportunity for design exploration and innovation in the future of interiors and positing challenges to core architectural concepts that have accompanied traditional practice. This research offers a visual analysis of aesthetic trends and new typologies present in the interior architectural spaces designed for the Metaverse. The analysis features a curated and collaged collection of works from ten creators of Metaverse spaces, categorised to examine the impact of digital architectural spaces that increasingly detach from the needs of physical dwellings. The research reveals commanding visual trends in Metaverse interior imagery that challenge traditional notions of interiority and dwelling and finds aesthetic signifiers of belonging in spaces that Augé (1995/2009) would neatly classified as an empirical 'non-place.' Positioned as a form of heterotopia in a realm where architecture is being designed for the purely visual, we posit that the less recognisable these spaces become, the more potential they hold for innovation in both the Metaverse and in dialogue with real-world interior architecture.

To understand the relationships between cognitive variables like visual complexity, coherence, and colour contrast in interior spaces, direct numerical analysis is crucial. Conventional approaches are limited due to the brain's struggle to process visual information without cognitive manipulation. However, advancements in artificial intelligence enable direct examinations. This study used a convolutional neural network to assess the intensity of colour contrasts in images of 5-star hotel lobby interiors with high levels of coherence and complexity. The results indicated that visually complex lobby interiors have less warm-cool and dark-light contrast but more pronounced complementary contrast than coherent lobby interiors. Additionally, a negative correlation was identified between complementary and warm-cool contrasts across all perspectives. These results underscore the potential influence of specific colour contrast types on the cognitive experience of interiority.

"Has any woman ever designed architectures in the past centuries? You may ask her to design a hut, not even a temple! She can't. She is foreign to architecture." These infamous words of Benito Mussolini (1927) reflected the widespread sexism of the Fascist regime and prompted a silent wave of dissent pioneered by women intellectuals, architects, writers, and journalists in the early 20th century. They advocated for a valuable feminine contribution to Italian architecture and their story is still partially unknown by architectural historians today. This essay tackles Italian women's spatial design and aesthetics during the regime, a period in which they kept silently operating within the built environment as professional architects with unbuilt projects and as amateur designers inside their homes. These circumstances, as argued here, determined the emergence of a feminine and feminist approach to architectural design and criticism that transcended the male boundaries of high culture, reinforced by the Fascist regime and in line with the modernist binary understanding of taste and cultural architectural production. The latter is studied through the lens of cultural domesticity, a theoretical framework that merges cultural sociology, feminism, and architecture. By focusing on Italian women's lived experiences and unconventional design approaches, this study ultimately looks at the consolidation of feminine aesthetics and how it informed women's spatial design as it keeps challenging the boundaries of architectural history.

This study explores to determine the live-work housing needs of low-income older people in informal settlements, the ways of life of whom contemporary housing provision often fails to consider. A questionnaire survey was conducted in three communities in Klong Toey, the largest informal settlement in Bangkok, to understand households’ satisfaction levels and expectations regarding the interior quality of their live-work housing. Older people’s specific interior spaces and housing requirements and expectations vary depending on the nature of their livelihood activities that can be categorised into three main groups, namely service, cook, and stock. The findings suggest a strong relationship between housing domains and the overall satisfaction of older people. There is a strong relationship between overall housing satisfaction and comfort in interior living spaces, as well as safety for domestic working spaces. Design, Health, Comfort, and Adaptability are important domains for live-work environments that ensure housing meets older people’s expectations. Therefore, housing design and improvements should embrace the live-work concept to maintain a sustainable and healthy ageing environment.

Less than a century has passed since the creation or at least the use of the term interior architecture. Although interior architecture had existed before and was considered an inseparable part of architectural work, some developments and changes became the basis for the formation of interior architecture and, as a result, its appearance independently of architecture. The main impact of these developments in the independence of interior architecture can be traced to the 19th and 20th centuries when the field of two specialisations of the same family, interior decoration and interior design emerged. This article aims to take a step towards understanding what interior architecture is by understanding the origin or emergence of this speciality. Therefore, in this research, firstly, the background of the emergence of interior decoration and interior design is discussed, then why and how interior architecture appeared is investigated and analysed. The methodology of this research is interpretive-historical and the findings are expressed using graphical methods in the form of flow charts, timelines, and diagrams. In the conclusion of this research, a conceptual model is presented to explain the impact of the emergence of these three specialities on each other.

This article examines the roles taken by seats in the buildings that form the lifeworld of Pathars—traditional Tamil goldsmiths—as an ideoscape following their migration to Penang during the British colonial period in the 19th century. This study used a phenomenological ethnography method to bring Pathars’ lived experiences with their physical environment to the forefront, highlighting the subjectiveness of architecture that shapes their lifeworld. The ideoscape of seats is analysed in themes to examine the power and politics of seats in the Pathars’ lifeworlds, including present-day migrant workers. To find a seat is a metaphor that elicits discussion on Pathars’ existential lives and highlights how this community has attempted to negotiate its way as agents of change or to bring the agency to their position in creating spatial norms in place amidst the state reifying its enclaves with essentialised notions of ethnic identity, following the formation of nation-states.

The exhibition space is a territory where architects and designers have experimented with hybrid and performative spatial qualities. However, such spatial mechanisms have expanded into other spatial practices. As we live in a constantly changing world, these practices allow spatial systems that adjust to continual changes in modes of living. Newer approaches to spatial transformation try to respond to the need for transience and flexibility. Hybrid and performative interventions are elaborated to transform existing spaces with strategic non-architectural rearrangements. As a result, our inhabited spaces, such as exhibitions, are becoming hybrid and performative. However, hybrid and performative may be perceived as tools, or as resulting qualities. The literature review analysis shows many intersections between hybrid and performative. Both terms indicate a flexible built environment that is designed and organised to be multifunctional. Hybrid mostly refers to the various modes of accessing, using and being present in the space, while performative refers to the concept of flexible mechanisms, the openness towards changes and the unpredictable characterisation of a space. Performative is also linked to the ability of the space to multitask and perform different roles, including communicative tasks. This study investigates the repertoire of hybrid and performative through an analysis of a literature review conducted through the lens of exhibition design. We seek to explore and promote applications in spatial interventions and the potential to define a set of analytical tools. Seeing the emergence of a constantly changing world, spatial disciplines are trying to respond with flexible mechanisms. Therefore, newer critical lenses, scholarships, and analytical tools must be investigated, explored, and proposed to cope with such continuous shifts.

Primbon as Javanese local knowledge has been a guide for Javanese everyday and ritual life, included buildings, for decades. This paper intends to investigate the use of primbon in the Kraton Yogyakarta (Palace of Yogyakarta) as the representation of the sultan (king). The investigation was conducted through interpretive criticism to reveal the degree of conformity under the rules and principles in primbon as an attempt to form a new perspective in understanding the primbon. The analysis focuses on verses 172 and 194–196 of Primbon Betaljemur Adammakna, which deals with the arrangement of buildings. By transliterating the verses into English and interpreting the application of the verses in Kraton Yogyakarta, the study demonstrated the manifestation of the primbon verses in the kraton’s building arrangement. The study of primbon reveals the role of kraton as the representation of the earth in the universe, while the representation here displays the hierarchical arrangement of building facilities, from sacred to nonsacred or from private to public.