MDes Interior Design School of Design
Jenny Le Masurier
I’m a spatial designer, specifically interested in conceptual and speculative ways of thinking and the incorporation of reciprocal design, ecological sensitivity, spatial innovation and interior to exterior flow in design. With a background in MA Geography, my work applies a co-equal imperative to addressing both sociological and ecological challenges and I centre this interwoven approach throughout my design process. My understanding of habitation and public space is grounded in extensive research in urban studies, interior design principles, spatial design strategies and socioeconomic and ecological formation of space.
My process goes from spatial analysis to conceptual thinking to design experimentation. As a result, the final design outcome is grounded in context-sensitivity, playful thinking and comprehensive design exploration.
The Living Threshold
The urban landscape is a complex and transient site of habitation, continuously shaped in both seen and unseen ways by the rapidly evolving dynamics of contemporary urbanisation. As urban populations grow and the global climate crisis intensifies, we find ourselves at a threshold, a living threshold: a point where a sustainable future depends upon a reimagination of urban space and the experiences it creates. The urban interior, specifically liminal spaces mediating between interior and exterior, remain largely inconspicuous, or governed by aesthetics, overlooking deeper experiential, material, sensorial, and contextual considerations.
The Living Threshold proposes a typology for a reorientation in design thinking, moving beyond the visual to incorporate moments of restorative liminality. Think: awe, ‘living’ liminality, restoration, and embodiment. Concurrently, it applies human and ecological restoration as a co-equal imperative for a sustainable interior design typology. By foregrounding these parallel embodied experiences in urban interior space, this research reimagines the threshold to support ecological and psychological restoration.
The typology is applied to Glasgow, rendering it a prototype. The Living Threshold is grounded in ecological consideration through the Urban Heat Island (UHI) informed spatial analysis. Through iterative application of Attention Restoration Theory (Kaplan, 1995), the concept is situated in the question: how can the urban interior threshold be designed for ecological and psychological restoration? As a sequel to ‘The Living Archive’ (stage two) – the typology enacts principles of reciprocity in design: expanding this towards psychological and ecological reciprocity and positioning restoration as a critical imperative within the urban context. In doing so, this research argues for interior design as a key agent in shaping resilient, restorative cities for a sustainable future.
Keywords: Urban Interior, Liminal, Psychological & Ecological Restoration, Spatial and Sensorial Experience.
The Living Archive
The ‘Living Archive’ is a conceptual design project exploring the delicate balance between human and non-human existence. Rooted in a hypothetical intersection between Indigenous ecological knowledge and contemporary sustainable design, it weaves together the notions of materiality, narrative, and the intangible.
The concept, guided by the writings of Tim Ingold, Timothy Morton, and Julia Watson, delves into the interplay of the physical and the transient, offering a space where the two converge. The project seeks to honour TEK (Traditional Ecological Knowledge), centre upon agency for nature, and foster human interaction.
Drawing from the industrial history of Glasgow, the Firhill Doocot, and the Forth & Clyde Canal, it examines the complex layers of human influence, organic materiality, and local ecological conservation. The ‘Living Block’ emerges as a symbol of this synthesis—an intersection of sustainable materiality, Indigenous practices, and the evolution of biodiversity.
As the Living Archive evolves, it will integrate these insights into a space that honours nature’s agency, incorporates Indigenous techniques, and offers a blueprint for a symbiotic, sustainable future for design.
