William Mangold is an assistant professor in the Department of Architecture, Design, and Urbanism at Drexel University. Previously he taught in the interior design program at Pratt Institute, and worked in the NYC office of Ivan Brice Architecture. He is a PhD candidate in Environmental Psychology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York , and holds degrees in Fine Arts and Architecture from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). William’s work is guided by an interest in the interactions between people and place, underscored by a dedication to social responsibility. Trained as a cabinet maker, he combines practice with theory, integrating hands-on making with ongoing study of interior experiences. His edited volume, The People, Place, and Space Reader, brings together scholarship on topics such as home, urban experience, and public space. He is currently working on an Interiors Theory Primer, the first comprehensive introduction to interior design theory.

My father is a carpenter and cabinetmaker and I grew up on jobsites and in the shop before attending the Rhode Island School of Design. At RISD I received degrees in fine arts and architecture, with a training grounded in materials and making. After RISD my trajectory was not linear, but I worked for a small award-winning architecture firm in New York City, and got my first taste of teaching. Realizing I wanted to pursue teaching, and recognizing my interest in the social processes that shape and are shaped by design, I returned to school for a PhD in Environmental Psychology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. There I learned social theory and research methods, bringing those skills into dialogue with my background in craft and making. This opened an interesting pathway: teaching interior architecture and design, first at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, and currently as a tenure-track professor at Drexel University in Philadelphia. While teaching, I’ve maintained a small design practice and I’ve expanded my scholarship, publishing The People, Place, and Space Reader, and now working on my second book, Interiors Theory Primer.

As a teacher, I often begin with the question of “What is good design?” This is a productive beginning for a number of reasons. It introduces learning as a process of asking questions and positing answers, instead of blindly accepting and reciting information (a practice borrowed from Plato). It establishes my ignorance, and initiates a collaborative process of learning from each other (a philosophy borrowed from Jacques Ranciere). It opens an ongoing dialogue that brings us closer and closer to knowledge in the fashion of pragmatism (from John Dewey). The qualitative designation “good” brings up issues of ethics and practice, and raises questions of power and context (as championed by Paulo Freire). Taken as a whole, I believe my role as an educator is to bring students closer to self-actualization while working to make the world more habitable.

As a designer, I draw upon my early experiences in building and fabrication; my training in architecture, at an art school where my repertoire expanded into glassblowing, printmaking, and ceramics; my interest in inhabitation, fortified through PhD studies in Environmental Psychology; and my love for speculative creations, from film sets to utopian dreams. My work ranges from installation pieces built at full scale to drawings that imagine unbuildable worlds. I regularly cross from these artistic projects to commercial architecture and interior jobs for clients—and I find these two modes are mutually beneficial. I am skilled in spatial organization, which helps me solve problems and understand connections that are not always evident, and I enjoy attending to the details of craft and materiality.

As a scholar, my research and writing grows out of my personal experiences in the world. Moving from suburban Detroit to rural Kansas sparked my curiosity about relations between people and place, and continues to shape my interest in the environment and spatial experience. Professional work taught me to examine and question the myriad processes of architectural production, and specific discourses and practices such as design competitions or sustainability. I have learned to look closely at built spaces—from homes to public spaces—and how they support or deny human experiences. These interests and pursuits, especially when framed by questions of social justice, shape my focus on experiences of place, and design practices that re-work social and spatial conventions.