Professor Paul Chamberlain

Professor Paul Chamberlain MDesRCA

Lab4Living Design Director
Director of Art & Design Research Centre
E-mail p.m.chamberlain@shu.ac.uk
Phone 0114 225 6771
Fax 0114 225 6931

Lab4Living has evolved as a natural progression of my interdisciplinary research interests.  My aim was to create a space for a small community of diverse creative specialists to stimulate new ways of thinking. Often we are restricted by our own institutional structures but this cross faculty interdisciplinary collaboration provides and exciting platform for new creative opportunities. While my primary activity and responsibilities focus on research I value my role as a teacher sharing my experiences and engaging in stimulating discussion with creative enthusiastic young minds. My research and teaching philosophy adopts a ‘learning through doing’ approach.

I am interested how we embrace engineering, materials and technical innovation and enhance it with poetic solutions….designed objects that provide meaning, pleasure and enjoyment. To me small things matter very much. There is a fine line between comfortable and uncomfortable, beauty and ugliness, etc.

I am fascinated by the built environment (man made stuff) that has evolved over thousands of years, and its relationship with the natural world. Objects that respond to and influence our lifestyles, reflect culture and are embedded in ritual. Hence I love to travel as a recreational pastime and to inform my practice.

One of my design heroes, Charles Eames, when asked if one of his chair designs came to him in a flash,  his response was…. ‘yes… a 30 year flash’. My work in collaboration with my colleagues evolves, each project informing the other, working towards that flash.

For me design is as much about defining the question as providing the answer.