Redesigning Public Libraries in Flanders: Triggering the Societal Context Awareness of Interior Students

Developing societal context awareness in interior architecture students is one of the main objectives of the bachelor thesis at the University of Antwerp (Belgium). By means of a 2-year project on public libraries (2014–2016), the coaches of the design studio initiated research into the changing role of public libraries and the societal embedding of interior architecture, as well as the empathic role of the designer. The article is based on data acquired by the use of various qualitative research techniques, such as focus group debates with the studio coaches, analysis of the coaching sessions with the students, and analysis of the comments of the expert jury in the first research year, supported by half-structured individual interviews with students in the second research year. Based on an initial explorative evaluation of this research project it is clear that the development of societal context awareness in students is hindered by three phenomena: an activated selective perception, a dominant comfort-zone reflex, and copy-cat behavior. The article subsequently reports on (a) the subject of the bachelor thesis (i.e. Flemish public libraries and their societal challenges), (b) the pedagogical design of the renewed bachelor thesis, (c) the ex-ante and ex-post perceived societal awareness of the students, and (d) an initial set of identified enablers and disablers of the learning process. The article concludes that interior educators should continue to invest in triggering and developing societal awareness in their students if the interior discipline aspires to “the social compact to do good.”