Lived Interiors: Narratives and Memories - Symposium

Day 2: Keynote and Conference Presentations | 30 April, 2025

The Lived Interiors symposium explores the unique relationship between historical interiors and their evolving, lived experiences. While traditional views of “historical interiors” often focus on preserving a single moment in time, this discussion highlights the dynamic interaction between past and present, where each layer of history informs and enriches contemporary spaces. Focusing on the thematic track of "Narratives," we explore how memories—both personal and collective—are embedded in interiors and how these memories shape the historical and cultural value of spaces. Through discussions on reading, representing, and activating memory in design, the symposium will examine the role of material traces, social rituals, and design practices in preserving and creating meaningful connections between past and present.

Programme

• 9:30 - 09:45: Welcome
  
  
• 9:45 - 10:45: Keynote 1:  The House as Stage and Archive of Life | Susanne Pietsch, TU Delft
  
  
• 10:45 - 11.10: Coffee break
  
  
• 11.10 - 12.30: Session 1 - concept of lived interiors and user - maker relationship

• • Living in the Lived Interior: User Agency in Harat-al-Aqr's Reuse | Nusrat Ritu, Hasselt University
  • Fleeting Spaces, Eternal Thoughts: Nanda Vigo and the Paradoxes of Domestic Interiors | Groaz Silvia, Univeristy of Liege and ENSA Paris-Est
  • Reconstructing a Memory Palace: The Many Lives of Joe Price’s Shin’enkan | Paula Lupkin, University of Texas
  • A haunted house? Memories of the 20th century. Strategies to build a present and afford a future | Tobias Zepter, Office for Architecture in Berlin and Meissner, Hesse

• 12:30 - 14:00: lunch
  
  
• 14:00 - 15:30: Session 2 - Charged heritage (contested, colonial, religious)

• • Exploring narratives on the Reuse of Contested Heritage: Dealing with Contemporary Conflicting Values | Sara Eloy, University of Antwerp
  • The Implications of Narrative: The UK Experience of Lived Church Interiors | Dr Nigel Hugh Walter, University of York; Archangel Architects
  • Layered memories in Mozambique’s modern interiors: navigating decolonisation and everyday living | Patricia Noormahomed, ArchLabour
  • The Narrative and Meaning of a Rural Home in Wartime Ukraine | Kateryna Malaia, The University of Utah

• 15:30 - 16:50: Session 3 - experimental methods to represent/manifest memory in interiors

• • Inside out – textile as a spatial memory basis | Karen Lens, Hasselt University
  • Narratives of collectivity: representing histories of the Evergreen Brickworks | Julia Jamrozik, Toronto Metropolitan University
  • In Absentia. Designing the absent city within the American domestic interior | Patrizio M. Martinelli, Northumbria University
  • Casting Memory: Inside Walmer Yard | Laura Mark, Newcastle University

• 16:50 - 17:15: Coffee break
  
  
• 17.15 - 17.30: Closing remarks
  
  
• 17.30 - 18.30: Keynote 2: Building Stories to Live In: Writing, drawing, making, and experimental preservation of historic interiors | Ed Hollis, Edinburgh University

Date and location:

• Tuesday April 29th & Wednesday 30th April 2025
• Oude Gevangenis, Martelarenlaan 42, 3500 Hasselt

Registration

• You can register via this Google Form

More information

• Research Group Trace
• Lived Interiors
• As Found Network

Additional activities

• Adaptive reuse projects in Belgium mentioned in the 'The Architecture of Reuse in Brussels' publication by BMA
• Online maps for unguided architectural walking tours of Brussels

Susanne Pietsch is an architect and interior architect based in Rotterdam. She is interested in architecture as an expression of collective action and material culture, particularly the aspect of craftsmanship and actual physical participation in the creative process. Her projects operate at the intersection of design, research and the production of architectural projects, interiors, exhibitions, furniture and objects. Susanne is co-author of the publications Walls that Teach – On the Architecture of Youth Centres (Jap Sam, 2014) and The New Craft School (Jap Sam, 2018). She teaches at the Architecture Faculty of TU Delft in the Group of Interiors Buildings Cities, where she supervises students in all MSc courses and coordinates parts of the program. Her teaching emphasizes sensitivity to context, an approach to design through narrative, and the value of collaboration.

Hollis originally trained as an architect, and worked on the adaptive re-use of historic buildings in Sri Lanka and Edinburgh. He is now University of Edinburgh Professor of Interior Design and author of several books of building stories: ‘The Secret Lives of Buildings’ (2009) ‘The Memory Palace: A Book of Lost Interiors’ (2013) and ‘How to Make a Home’ (2016).
He is currently working with researchers at ParisPantheon1 and the Complutense University, Madrid in the JPICH-funded project ‘Cultural Heritage at the Metropolitan Periphery’, and is programme director for Edinburgh University’s new PhD programme in Cultural Heritage.
This research was undertaken in relation to Hollis’ PhD in Practice Research at RMIT Melbourne, Australia, titled ‘Building Stories: Retelling Pasts and Presents and Building Unpredictable Futures for Stories and Buildings’. His supervisors were Professors Suzie Attiwill and Nicholas Boyarsky.

The Lived Interiors Symposium takes place in Hasselt, Belgium.

• The event location: UHasselt, Campus Old Prison, Martelarenlaan 42, 3500 Hasselt (city center)
• How to get to the city by train, car or bike? Check this website.
• Airports in the region: Brussels Airport, Brussels South Charleroi Airport, Eindhoven Airport, Maastricht Aachen Airport.
• In need of an overnight accomodation? Check this website.
• Searching for a place to eat in the city? Let this site be you guide.