Associate Professor Suzie Attiwill

In 2013, Suzie was appointed Deputy Dean of Learning and Teaching in the School of Architecture and Design. In this role, she provides strategic and scholarly leadership for all learning and teaching activities in the school.

Prior to this appointment, Suzie was the program director of Interior Design from 2005 to 2012. She continues to contribute to the interior design discipline through her creative practice research which re-poses conditions of interior and interiority. She fosters creative practice research in interior design through the supervision of PhD candidates. Suzie is recognised internationally in the field of interior design. Her research has been published as book chapters, journal articles, conference presentations and exhibitions. She has been invited to present workshop intensives: Radical Learning, Milan Architecture Intensive Workshop (MIAW), School of Architecture and Urban Planning, 2016 and Urban Interior, School of Design, 2013, at Politecnico di Milano. Suzie has contributed to workshops held by The New School/Parsons, NYC and Royal College of Art, London.

Her research practice poses questions of interior and interiority in relation to contemporary conditions of living, inhabitation, subjectivity, pedagogy and creative practice. The research is conducted through a practice of designing with a curatorial inflection attending to arrangements (and re-arrangements) of spatial, temporal and material relations.

Research projects include:

urban + interior – a collaborative publication project bringing together a editorial team situated in Milan, Madrid and Melbourne to foster an international research network addressing the proposition urban + interior; beyond building with Gregory Nicolau (Australian Childhood Trauma Group) focuses on the situation of residential care homes for young people who have been placed in government care as a result of family abuse and/or neglect; and a series of curatorial experiments in ecologies of learning – physical, social and mental.

Suzie’s PhD titled ‘?interior, practices of interiorizations, interior designs’ was a practice-based research PhD that questioned dominant phenomenological models of interior and interiority to re-pose concepts of interior in relation to exteriors and as a practice/process of interiorization. The research was conducted through curatorial and exhibition practice. Full text. Video of examination presentation.

Areas of research supervision focus on the concept of interior and interiority in relation to practices of design, art, craft, theory, writing and curating.

List of publications (PDF, 160 KB)

As Deputy Dean of Learning and Teaching in the School of Architecture and Design, Suzie provides strategic and scholarly leadership for all learning and teaching activities in the school for programs in the disciplines of Architecture, Building Design, Digital Design, Furniture Design, Graphic Design, Industrial Design, Interior Design, Interior Decoration, Landscape Architecture, Product Design, Urban Design and Visual Merchandising. This includes promoting excellence in learning and teaching and developing and implementing sound strategies in the context of contemporary learning and teaching practice.

She joined the Interior Design program in a continuing role in 2000. From 1999 to 2008, she coordinated the History and Theory stream of the Interior Design program – motivated to articulate a history and theory particular the program’s interest in an expanded idea of interior design. She has presented design studios to 2nd and 3rd year students, supervised final year undergraduates and postgraduates, and has taught in specialisation areas such as exhibition design. From 2005 to 2012, she was program director, Interior Design.

Suzie is registered as a Category 1 Research Supervisor. Areas of research supervision focus on the concept of interior and interiority in relation to practices of design, art, craft, theory, writing and curating.

Research completions:
2015:
Mark Edgoose Triggers: craft objects in space and time PhD Gold & Silversmithing (associate supervisor)
2014:
Jacqueline Chan Jewellery in the Urban Milieu: explorations in emergence PhD Gold & Silversmithing (senior supervisor)
2012:
Johanna Kelly Exhibition Design + Contemporary Encounters Masters Interior Design (senior supervisor)
2010:
Gabriele Knueppel Sensory Spatiality: tangible and intangible dynamics in interior architectural design PhD Interior Design (associate supervisor)
2008:
Fleur Summers Missing Links. Evolutionary theory as a model and scientific intervention as a strategy for artistic process and production Masters Sculpture (associate supervisor)
2007:
Bianca Hester material adventures, spatial productions: manoeuvring sculpture towards a proliferating event PhD by project, Sculpture (associate supervisor)
Patrick Chan Outside-Singapore: A Practice of Writing: Making Subjects and Spaces yet to come PhD Interior Design (associate supervisor)
Sharn Lim Engaging Space. A practice of arranging Masters Interior Design(senior supervisor)
Arcelia MacGregor Spacing Out. The Architecture of an Inner Masters Interior Design, 2007 (senior supervisor)
Fiona Abicare Display Contexts and the Materiality of Interior Productions Masters Interior Design (senior supervisor)
2006:
Roger Kemp Looking into: Looking through. Negotiating Space: an interior practice Masters Interior Design (senior supervisor)
2004:
Viviane Stappmanns Writing Space. The making of a practice of a journalism of interior design Masters Cross disciplinary: interior design + journalism (senior supervisor)

• PhD (Architecture and Design), RMIT University. Research by practice, titled: ?interior, practices of interiorization, interior designs, 2013
• Master (Design), RMIT University. Research by practice, titled: The Reposing Box: the reinvention of the archive, 1994
• Bachelor of Arts (Interior Design 1st Class Honours), RMIT University. Project title: The Collectors, 1991
• Certificate of Applied Arts Melbourne School of Textiles, 1986
• Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours in Fine Arts and Indian Studies) University of Melbourne, 1983. Thesis title: The Modern Fairytale. The Café Aubette, Strasbourg, 1928

Since 1992, Suzie has had an independent practice that involves the design of exhibitions, curatorial work, writing and working on a range of interdisciplinary projects in Australia and overseas. Her practice has received peer review and esteem evidenced through the invitation of some of the most notable design practitioners and art institutions in Australia, including the architectural firm Denton Corker Marshall and graphic designer Garry Emery. She has extensive experience as a journal editor and exhibition curator

Design practitioner: 1992 to current
Artistic Director, Craft Victoria, 1996 to 1999
Interior designer, Woods Bagot Architects, Melbourne, 1992 to 1993

Professional roles and interests:
Executive Editor, IDEA JOURNAL, 2014–2015
Editorial Advisory Committee IDEA JOURNAL, 2009 to 2015
Chair, IDEA (Interior Design/Interior Architecture Educators Association) 2006 to 2012.
Honorary Life member, Craft Victoria
Editorial Advisory Board Interstices. Journal of Architecture and Related Arts, 2015 - ongoing
Editorial Advisory Board Material Thinking, 2015
Member Craft + Design Enquiry Journal Editorial Committee Australian National University, 2012 to 2014
Member Northlands Secondary School Art & Design Advisory Committee, 2010 to 2013
Director West Space Board Artist-led initiative, 2006 to 2010 (Chair: May 2007 to April 2009)
Concept investigator, ‘identity’ International Federation of Interior Architects/Designers Global Symposium – Interiors Entity New York City, March 2011.
Member of moderating panel, Interior Design: The State of Art – Part II. International Federation of Interior Architects (IFI) Round Education Round Table – Thinking into the Future, New York City, July 11–12 2007.
Member Victorian Design Advisory Council Department of Environment and Sustainability, Victorian State Government, July 2002 to September 2003

External reviewer for book proposals with publishers AADR, RIBA, Berg, Routledge and AVA in area of interior design and architecture.

Examiner of PhDs: Interior Architecture, Hasselt University, Belgium (2016), Interior Architecture, University of Pretoria, South Africa (2015), Faculty of Art and Design, UNSW (2015); School of Art, Australian National University, Canberra (2014).

Examiner of Masters: Faculty of Architecture, Art and Design, Monash University; College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales; Victoria College of the Arts, University of Melbourne; University of Technology, Sydney; and Massey University and Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand.

Judge:
Taipei International Design Awards, China Centre for Production, Taiwan, 2014.
Room of the Year, House and Garden Magazine 2015 and 2011.
IDEA Awards Interior Design Excellence Awards 2009.
Premier Design Award (State of Design Festival), 2008.
Premier’s Award for Design Leadership The Premier’s Design Awards, State of Design Festival 2006.