Professor Lynn Chalmers
Associate Professor, Department of Interior Design
412 Architecture 2 Building
t 204.474.6435
f 204.474.7532
chalmers@cc.umanitoba.ca
Education
Dip.ID .(professional), Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. Victoria, Australia.
M.Des (post- professional), University of South Australia, South Australia.
candidate in PhD in Communication and Culture, joint program Ryerson/York Universities, Toronto
Professional Memberships
Interior Design Educators Council (IDEC) - Secretary Treasurer 2007-
Professional Interior Designers Institute Manitoba (PIDIM)
Interior Designers of Canada (IDC)
Canadian Voice for Interior Design Educators (CVIDE)
Research
Professor Lynn Chalmers is working towards completion of her PhD in Communications and Culture a joint program between Ryerson and York Universities. The research problem the thesis addresses engages with the space of work and the alienation of the workers. Many of the emotions associated with work are located in the hegemony of organizational management. The power structure is traditionally one-sided and can bias research attempts to unlock difficult or esoteric issues in the workplace such as concerns about privacy and personal space, the conflict between personal responsibility and teamwork, and the impact of communications technologies on life balance. Disgruntled employees may be stealing office supplies or fudging working hours to compensate – tactics, tricks and games played at the employers expense.
Office workspace is both private and public; it is a reflection of corporate values and individual identities; it is designed both to support and determine workplace behaviors and as such offers a rich source of spatial and material culture for interpretation and reading. Preliminary investigations were presented in Edinburgh at the IFS ‘Tools and Tactics, Conference in 2008. The paper was titled ‘Tactics at Work’ and publication is pending.
A continuing research focus for Professor Chalmers is design education and the impact of theory on Interior Design education. She is presenting a paper at the ConnectED 2010 Conference in Sydney, Australia titled ‘Reframing a Design Discipline after Modernism.’ Culture has become the dominant ideology of late capitalism and as designers have historically acted as mediators of the dominant ideology, postmodernity represents new responsibilities and opportunities for the design disciplines. A reframing of the education of the designer is required to replace the canon of high modernism that became established in the academy in the 1960s. The paper looks to the beginnings of the cultural turn in design, revisiting theorists and historians such as Forty, Jameson, Sparke, Thackera and Coates’ writing from the 1980s, to study the connection between design education and writing, and cultural theory and material culture.
412 Architecture 2 Building
t 204.474.6435
f 204.474.7532
chalmers@cc.umanitoba.ca
Education
Dip.ID .(professional), Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. Victoria, Australia.
M.Des (post- professional), University of South Australia, South Australia.
candidate in PhD in Communication and Culture, joint program Ryerson/York Universities, Toronto
Professional Memberships
Interior Design Educators Council (IDEC) - Secretary Treasurer 2007-
Professional Interior Designers Institute Manitoba (PIDIM)
Interior Designers of Canada (IDC)
Canadian Voice for Interior Design Educators (CVIDE)
Research
Professor Lynn Chalmers is working towards completion of her PhD in Communications and Culture a joint program between Ryerson and York Universities. The research problem the thesis addresses engages with the space of work and the alienation of the workers. Many of the emotions associated with work are located in the hegemony of organizational management. The power structure is traditionally one-sided and can bias research attempts to unlock difficult or esoteric issues in the workplace such as concerns about privacy and personal space, the conflict between personal responsibility and teamwork, and the impact of communications technologies on life balance. Disgruntled employees may be stealing office supplies or fudging working hours to compensate – tactics, tricks and games played at the employers expense.
Office workspace is both private and public; it is a reflection of corporate values and individual identities; it is designed both to support and determine workplace behaviors and as such offers a rich source of spatial and material culture for interpretation and reading. Preliminary investigations were presented in Edinburgh at the IFS ‘Tools and Tactics, Conference in 2008. The paper was titled ‘Tactics at Work’ and publication is pending.
A continuing research focus for Professor Chalmers is design education and the impact of theory on Interior Design education. She is presenting a paper at the ConnectED 2010 Conference in Sydney, Australia titled ‘Reframing a Design Discipline after Modernism.’ Culture has become the dominant ideology of late capitalism and as designers have historically acted as mediators of the dominant ideology, postmodernity represents new responsibilities and opportunities for the design disciplines. A reframing of the education of the designer is required to replace the canon of high modernism that became established in the academy in the 1960s. The paper looks to the beginnings of the cultural turn in design, revisiting theorists and historians such as Forty, Jameson, Sparke, Thackera and Coates’ writing from the 1980s, to study the connection between design education and writing, and cultural theory and material culture.
