Refugees, migration and inclusive communities through design: an 'urban interior' approach to resilient cities

How can the practice of interior design be applied to open up the contemporary European neo-liberal city and make space for asylum seekers, refugees, and otherwise socially marginalised migrant communities? In this paper I will focus on how the relational priorities, strategies and approaches of the interior designer can be applied to design and construct temporary urban spaces - 'urban interiors' - that instigate human encounters with otherness and invite participants into events of human exchange. 'The Guesthouse Project' conducted in 2016 in Australia's most European city, Melbourne, will provide the case study for this analysis. This project was a joint venture between RMIT University's School of Architecture and Design, the internationally acclaimed, Berlin-based architecture collective, raumlabor.berlin, local refugee services organisation VICSEG, and local migrant communities. In view of its temporary nature, the paper will address the issue of whether or not the project had any enduring socio-political value.