Dr. Phoebe Whitman

Phoebe is dedicated and passionate to the discipline of interior design as an expanded field of practice concerned with material, spatial, temporal and relational conditions. Her research is conducted through an experimental practice emphasising open-ended and material–led processes. Phoebe's research practice concerns surfaces as sites and situations where she can incite an emergence of occurrences and potentialities with surface. Her activities in academia, education and spatial practice are an opportunity to draw attention to surfaces and their potentiality as sites in a dynamic and changing flow of forces. By engaging in various mediums, materialities, and energies, Phoebe's practice aims to give value to surfaces and surfacing as a critical spatial practice. Through her various academic, educational and spatial activities, she intends to enable an experience and perception of materiality and temporality in the world. Phoebe regularly develops design studios in the interior design undergraduate program as part of her integrated scholarship ethos. She has partnered with various organisations and individual practitioners over the years that she has been an academic in the Interior Design discipline. 

In 2011, Phoebe received two awards from RMIT - one for Innovation in Curricula, Learning & Teaching and an award for the First Year Experience. In 2012 she received an award for her Participation in the RMIT Peer Partnerships in the School of Architecture & Design, Higher Education, RMIT University.

Phoebe is currently the co-director of IDEA–Interior Design, Interior Architecture Educators Association of Australia and New Zealand.

• Program Manager, Bachelor of Interior Design (Honours)
• Professional Practice Coordinator, Bachelor of Interior Design (Honours)
• Second & Third Year Design Studio Coordinator, Bachelor of Interior Design (Honours)
• Director of IDEA–Interior Design, Interior Architecture Educators Association of Australia and New Zealand

• PhD (Architecture and Urban Design), Research by Practice ‘Surface Encounter’, RMIT University, 2021. 
• Graduate Certificate, Tertiary Teaching and Learning, RMIT University, 2009.
• Bachelor of Design (Interior Design) (Honours), RMIT University, 2005.
• Bachelor of Arts (Honours) Fine Art, RMIT University, 1999.

• Worked in editorial styling and interior styling
• Exhibition design and curation
• Interior design across commercial contexts; hospitality, education, retail and residential design.
• Developed and offered a series of partnered design studios that were affiliated with industry partners and organizations such as Wyndham City Council, The CCP, The Projects We Do Together, NGV, and The Australian National Veterans Arts Museum.
• Executive Director, Interior Design/Interior Architecture Educators Association (IDEA)