Delia Skinner

Teaching :  I currently teach across the full spectrum of design and architectural learning communities/courses within the Birmingham School of Architecture and Design (BSoAD). My teaching demonstrates specialist knowledge of:

•   Interior Design as a cultural marker, medium and mode
•   Brand strategies and Brandscaping 
•   Creativity philosophy, processes and systems
•   Trends Forecasting for designers
•   The Architects Market Sector
•   Critical analysis, evaluation and synthesis of design concepts
•   Designerly Ways of Knowing – methods and theories
•   Transdisciplinary Design theory and practice
•   Design as an Appreciative Inquiry and positive force
•   Drawing techniquesfor architects and designers
•   Design detailing for interior designers
•   Model making for architects and designers

Research methods for architects and designers

Researching : In 2014, I registered a doctoral study.  My PhD inquiry focuses on “The Creative Experience of Interior Designers”. This exploratory work continues to act as a catalyst for my professional development and has recently underpinned my Master’s Degree in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education.

•   As a member of the Design Research Society and the BSoAD ‘Pedagogies / Practices’ research cluster, I have taken an appreciative view of interior design as a distinct research discipline. I have embraced philosophical perspectives that see Creativity as a ‘condition’ and an evolutionary and dynamic system. 
•   My emerging research has connected design action with the creativity research domain.  I have particular knowledge of the fields of Interior Design, Designerly Ways of Knowing (Cross, 2004), Flow Theory (Csikszentmihalyi, 1992), Positive Psychology (Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi, 2000) and Appreciative Inquiry (Srivastva,and Cooperrider,1987) in a design context.