ZOFIA SALUGA
salugazofia@gmail.com
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I recently completed my Master’s degree in Interior Architecture, building on my background in Industrial Design. My practice has evolved from designing individual objects towards a broader understanding of space as a complex system of relationships between people, materials, context, and time.
Throughout my studies, I became increasingly interested in design as a process rather than a final outcome:
a continuous accumulation of meanings, traces, and experiences that shape the way we inhabit spaces.
I approach design through research, observation, and analysis, exploring how places can emerge from their specific cultural, social, and material contexts rather than from universalized visual languages.
My work is driven by a curiosity about authenticity in contemporary design and the role of the designer with in an increasingly digital and globalized environment. In
a time when references and aesthetics are rapidly circulating and becoming homogenized, I am interested in developing approaches that reconnect design with locality, memory, and the unique qualities of a place.
Alongside my design practice, I work professionally in ballet and contemporary dance, which deeply influences my understanding of space through movement, rhythm, embodiment, and perception. I also explore oil painting, functional ceramics, and cooking as parallel creative practices that inform my sensitivity towards materiality, composition, and sensory experience.
I am particularly interested in developing research-based design methodologies and exploring how critical thinking and careful analysis can become tools for creating meaningful and context-responsive environments.
CV
004_INTERSTICE: A SENSITIVE STRUCTURE
004_INTERSTICE: A SENSITIVE STRUCTURE
STUDENT PROJECT
/ tutor: dr. Patrycja Ochman-Tarka /
Duration: I semester 24/25
– created with Joanna Jaszczyk, Aleksandra Kotyla, Maria Oprych & Ewa Zamorska
DESCRIPTION
Interstice: A Sensitive Structure is an installation exploring the relationship between the human body and architecture as a journey through its tissue: from the outer shell, through a transitional layer, into a warm interior. Each layer carries a dual meaning: literal, as a structural component, and metaphorical, referring to the ways space is perceived, experienced, and remembered.
The work invites viewers to move through architecture not merely as a built form, but as a living structure — one that filters light, mediates thresholds, and shapes emotional resonance. The “interstice” becomes both a physical opening and a perceptual condition: a moment of passage in which structure reveals its sensitivity.
The installation explores the materiality of architecture with its immaterial dimension, revealing how space transforms in response to human presence. Architecture may impose directions and boundaries, yet the human being — like a river — finds their own paths, inscribing memories into its structure and transforming it into a vessel of lived experience.
Layer I: The Shell – Façade
The viewer’s first encounter with the installation is confrontational. This outer layer, composed of materials with a raw, coarse texture, emits a cold light that does not invite entry but instead defines boundaries. The roughness is perceptible visually even before touch occurs, establishing distance and a sense of separation.
It is here that a certain humility before space begins to emerge.
Layer II: Seclusion – Membrane
Beneath the rigid shell lies a membrane — a translucent foil. This is a transitional zone, suspended between “outside” and “inside.” At this point, the raw materiality begins to soften, allowing light, air, and the gaze to pass through. Hope emerges here.
The human silhouette, visible through the membrane only as a blurred presence, becomes a promise of life within an otherwise inert structure. Architecture ceases to function as a barrier and begins to operate as an event.Layer III: Warm Interior – Insulation
At the heart of the installation lies a safe haven. Soft materials, referencing the insulating layer of a building, create an atmosphere of warmth and acoustic quietude. It is here that architecture becomes
a Sensitive Structure.
The human body enters this space as if into an embrace. The interior receives presence, enveloping it in warm light and calm. The perception of space shifts, and its meaning is redefined through human presence.