Domestic Interiors Database

Database Picture 3

An online public database of written and visual sources

Project leader: Professor Jeremy Aynsley, History of Design, Royal College of Art
With Harriet McKay, RCA, Dr Viviana Narotzky, RCA and Dr Flora Dennis, RCA/V&A

Abstract

In 2006 the AHRC RCA Centre for the Study of the Domestic Interior published an online public Database of written and visual sources of representation of domestic interiors, the Domestic Interiors Database (DIDB). The CETLD remit we set ourselves was to discover what would be needed to enhance the Database; to extend its accessibility, use and audiences, and to promote DIDB as a resource. Working with V&A/RCA MA History of Design students, The V&A Education Department, and with students from the National Film and Television School, an evaluation of student and educator response to the DIDB became our core project.

Those who gained from using the DIDB  appeared to have been users who engaged with or were stimulated by the idea of limitless connection making beyond the structure of the Database itself. We discovered that at its most effetive DIDB acted as an intellectual springboard, providing a model for the possibility extended thinking, triggering all manner of  new connections and "learning leaps".

See the Domestic Interiors Database at:
http://www.rca.ac.uk/csdi/didb