Setareh Salehitaleghani - MA Interiors
Patterned Plate
As an interior designer, I approach design as a way of shaping how people connect with each other, with culture, and with the spaces they inhabit. My philosophy is rooted in the idea that interiors are not only physical environments but also emotional and social experiences. I am interested in how design can turn everyday rituals into moments of reflection, interaction, and belonging, using material, colour, light, and spatial layout as storytelling tools.
My MA project, Patterned Plate, explores eating as a cultural and emotional journey rather than a routine act. Set within Manchester’s Mackie Mayor, it unfolds through a series of themed spaces, each designed to evoke a different state of mind and way of gathering. The journey begins in the Nurture Zone, a calm, nest-like space close to nature, followed by the Vitality Zone, a raw, cave-like environment centred on a communal firepit table. It then opens into the Celebration Zone, where colour and light create joy and togetherness, before culminating in the Abundance Zone, where food is shared around a low communal table, emphasising generosity and collective experience.
Between each of these, transitional spaces with temporary installations invite visitors to reflect on what they have just experienced and prepare for what comes next. Across all zones, I designed not only the atmosphere but also the furniture and layouts, considering posture and interaction, whether grounded, intimate seating or open, collective tables, so that the act of eating itself becomes part of the narrative.
Through Patterned Plate, I explore how interior design can choreograph emotion, ritual, and connection. The project reflects my wider ethos: to create layered, participatory environments that engage memory and imagination as much as function.
