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High achievers: The PhD route for interior design

Investigating the process of a Reflective Industry Practice Model PhD Architecture and Design at RMIT University, we discover just what is involved and how the course influences those who participate.

High achievers: The PhD route for interior design

Robert Backhouse, examination presentation, June 2024, RMIT Design Hub Gallery, photograph by Etoile Nasrallah.

Increasing your knowledge and further developing understanding of interior design is forever ongoing. However, undertaking a PhD is really delving deep into process and practice, to explore not only design but the ideas, experience and prowess of a candidate and their practice. At RMIT University in Melbourne, a Reflective Industry Practice Model PhD Architecture and Design is available on a full-time or part-time basis. This is a leading global initiative for interior design and meets architecture, which has enjoyed such a model for many years that began under the supervision of Emeritus Professor Leon van Schaik.

The PhD is by invitation and the chosen candidates are well-respected in their interior design practice and position, with many responsibilities that take up much of their time. So, this is indeed a labour of love that requires many years of commitment.

As Dr Suzie Attiwill, Professor in Interior Design, School of Architecture and Urban Design RMIT University explains: “It’s always been this kind of process of inviting practitioners to come in and to do a PhD (although we are also open to enquiries!). This involves a biannual Practice Research Symposium, the presentation of work in progress to other peers and supervision through that process. Then the examination process has also remained the same over the past decades. It’s the model that’s offered. Another thing is that the practitioners are encouraged to continue practising full-time, because they’re involved in the practice, hence the practice is the site of research. So, it’s not about: ‘oh well, I’ll take time out of what I’m doing in order to do a PhD.'”

Sue Fenton.

A PhD is not an explanation or a memoir; it is a critical thread to ascertain where a practitioner’s work sits within their profession and what they are doing. It is a way to see the strengths and critically appraise a practice.

Attiwill adds: “A lot of people think that doing a PhD means that you become an academic. This design practice research PhD is really about making a contribution to one’s own practice and then also the profession. A PhD doesn’t ‘make’ someone’s practice, especially with a reflective industry practice model PhD. Rather, it gives the ability for people to go back into that practice, to reflect on it, to think about its distinctiveness in relationship to ways of working, the kind of spatial intelligence, the material intelligence, the environmental intelligence that is embodied in the practice. It is then drawn out as research and reflected on.”

Robert Backhouse, examination presentation, June 2024, RMIT Design Hub Gallery, photograph by Etoile Nasrallah.

In 2018, three designers of note were invited and accepted to the Reflective Industry Practice Model PhD program and began the long journey of exploration. The three candidates are Rob Backhouse, Chair of Hassell, Sue Fenton, Senior Associate at Woods Bagot, and Angela Ferguson, Managing and Creative Director at Futurespace.

There have been challenges for this group of interior designers that include dealing with the COVID pandemic. However, to date, Backhouse has completed his studies, while Fenton and Ferguson are in various stages of their journeys. Along with Attiwill, Dr Anthony Fryatt is the associate supervisor for all three candidates and has helped enormously throughout the process.

But what does it entail to undertake a practice research PhD at RMIT and what are the benefits and challenges involved? Talking with Backhouse, Fenton and Ferguson, many insights are uncovered that help explain the program and process that includes the personal and business costs to the individual. 

Robert Backhouse, work-in-progress review with Sue Carr AM and Professor Gini Lee, Practice Research Symposium, photograph by Suzie Attiwill.

Each candidate has a different focus for their PhD, that which differentiates them or is distinctive in their work. In very simple terms, Backhouse has explored the design process and leadership of his practice, Fenton the use and application of colour, and Ferguson active writing scenarios that have supported her practice throughout her career.

We put four questions to Rob Backhouse, Sue Fenton and Angela Ferguson, and asked for their differing perspectives.

Sue Fenton, Arrangement 03 – Palette re-arrangement, re-arranging the library, photograph by Sue Fenton.

Jan Henderson: Why did you decide to accept the invitation from RMIT to participate in the PhD design program?

Robert Backhouse: Firstly, I thought the opportunity to stop and reflect on 30 years of work and design practice was a rare opportunity. How do you do it into the future and perhaps be a better design practitioner by reflecting on the work?

The second reason was the interest in having observed and been aware of many architects doing the reflective industry practice PhD at RMIT. No one from the interior design profession had yet been invited at RMIT to do it. I was interested in the idea of contributing back to the broader profession of interior design and offer up a notion of value to the discipline. And then if other people contribute year on year, maybe it builds on a further value to the design professions.

Then the third reason was that Suzie [Attiwill] approached me at the right moment when I’d stepped down from the Managing Director role at Hassell and it just sounded like an interesting challenge.

Sue Fenton: The decision to undertake a practice-led PhD came at a time in my career when I was established and had a large body of project work upon which I could reflect. Although I was, and continue to be, passionately immersed within projects, I could see the enormous benefits of taking the time to stand back, reflect and distil my practice.

Angela Ferguson: The timing was perfect – I was looking to do some further study and I wasn’t sure what. I wanted to ‘level up’ my practice in some way and the invitation to undertake the PhD was exactly what I was looking for. It wasn’t a decision I made lightly either, and Suzie and I spoke at length about what was involved. My biggest concern was that being a commercial designer I wouldn’t be ‘creative’ enough, and I had this underlying thought that my work didn’t really have a lot of value, that it wasn’t something that changed people’s lives in any profound way. 

Work in progress, Sue Fenton.

So, how challenging is it to work full-time in a demanding and successful practice and study? Not to mention to try to have a life outside of study and work?

RB: So, it took nearly six years all up. I think the intent is to complete it in four to five years. I put it on hold for a year when some things at work changed and I had to take up a different role again.

Going through the milestone reviews, two reviews a year, attending cohort meetings and documenting the reflection my practice was not overly stressful, so much as just finding the time. But I have to say, during the last 12 months, when you’ve got to write the dissertation and it must go through a pretty intensive process with your supervisors, clarifying and editing, and feedback and critique, doing a full-time job, having a family and trying to build a house in that last two years… it has been very challenging.

SF: The idea of the practice led PhD is to reflect while embedded in your practice, so project work and research findings are in constant conversation. I did add Sundays to my working week, dedicated to reflection and production for the PhD. As the PhD evolved and grew in momentum, I was beginning to interview and research other designers working in similar ways to establish a community of practice, reading and writing which together all fed into new directions and informed current design projects.

It is a time commitment, and it is unlike the pure ‘doing’ of projects where you are solving problems and getting outcomes – it was a far more fluid process reflecting about your way of practice, often revealing the unexpected.

The PhD reignited my approach to projects, and, in turn, project insights folded back into the PhD. Working on projects and the PhD in unison, they did begin to blend more seamlessly, so much so, they become a reinvigorated way of working/thinking. Always together, galvanised. I do look forward to having my Sundays back though – not too long now…

AF: I’m not going to lie: It’s a lot! I’ve had to take some personal leave; however, the secret has been to really treat this as just another project in the studio. I’ve given it a project number; it has a file and folder on the server, and it has time allocated to it. It’s also not something that is separate to my practice, it’s inherently embedded in what I do each day.  

Then the PhD gives me the opportunity to reflect on the way I work, to take a step back and to have a bird’s eye view of what I’m contributing to both to my own practice and to the practice of interior design in Australia. This is one of the things we often commented on in our monthly cohort meetings, that the opportunity to step back and reflect was such a gift, as we rarely have time to do this as practitioners.

2019 Work in progress Rob Backhouse, Gini Lee and Anthony Fryatt.

Are you seeing any benefits from the program? For example, more understanding of your practice and work? Do you think the process has helped you for the future of your working life?

RB: I didn’t have a preconceived idea of what it would deliver. I didn’t have a prescribed expectation in doing it. I was prepared to go on the journey, and I saw the value in the reflection as a designer. What I chose to reflect on, and how my topic evolved because of what I was interested in – yes, I absolutely think it’s been valuable.

I can see how it’s impacted my clarity of thinking about conceptual ideas and creativity and how I communicate it to my colleagues and peers – to critique design, review each other’s work, even go and pitch to a client about an idea. So, strangely, I didn’t think it was necessarily something that would be commercially valuable, but I believe it is, in terms of how I practice and how I lead people, doing their best work and being great designers in a large international design practice.

I think it’s been a huge benefit to focus on my design process and the leadership of Hassell is part of what I uncovered in the research. So, to answer your question: yes, how I think, how I articulate and communicate conceptual thinking and ideas has progressed to another level.

SF: The PhD has been extremely beneficial to my career and to the deeper satisfaction I gain from designing projects with more clarity and purpose and no doubt will impact my approach to future projects. My PhD has reinvigorated my practice in the sense that I have a clearer and more front-of-mind understanding of what motivates my practice, a newfound clarity into how I harness and implement my research into projects, and I can direct how that process will keep evolving and reinvent.

AF: Absolutely. The benefits have been enormous. It’s given me not only a new understanding of how I practice, of what I do that is different to other practitioners, of the value my practice brings to my business and the industry, but it has also given me a new confidence in my practice. 

Prior to undertaking the PhD I’d thought because I wasn’t a certain ‘type’ of designer, it meant that what I did had less value. Through the PhD I’ve been able to appreciate that what I do as a designer is unique and how it is in fact extremely valuable. I’ve been able to focus more on this and it has allowed me to influence and change some of our fundamental practices in the studio. 

There are certain things we do now at Futurespace that are a direct result of this course of study and are really unique conceptually, that my team, clients, consultants and collaborators all can really easily engage with, and it supports us to provide a better overall design experience for our clients – both during the design process and when they eventually occupy the environment we’ve created for them.

2019 work in progress, Angela Ferguson.

Is this something you would recommend to other interior design exemplars?

RB: I would, but there are time challenges. I’d love to see some of my peer group be involved in this. I would just love to see interior design more accessible and valued as a discipline.

SF: I think that we as designers and collaborators can sometimes lose sight of why we do it and the PhD can reconnect our sense of purpose, so definitely Interior designers should think about it. Be informed first, meet the supervisor team, attend the PRS Symposiums, read some of the PhDs and be certain it’s for you.

AF: Yes definitely. You don’t have to be super academic – that scared me a little in the beginning – and it’s really a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to fundamentally review, assess, grow, focus and develop your practice. If you are serious about your profession, then I’d say undertaking this course of study is a must.

RMIT University
rmit.edu.au

Rob Backhouse | Hassell
hassellstudio.com

Angela Ferguson | Futurespace
futurespace.com.au

Sue Fenton | Woods Bagot
woodsbagot.com

Photography
Etoile Nasrallah, Suzie Attiwill, Sue Fenton

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