Narrative Interior Design: Giving Meanwhile Spaces a Purpose

Cities are full of spaces waiting for their next chapter. Vacant buildings, underused shopping centres, forgotten infrastructure. These sites often sit idle while long term plans slowly take shape.

Meanwhile use offers a way to activate them, bringing life back into the city through temporary occupation. At JH.A we see these moments not as placeholders, but as opportunities to create meaningful experiences through design.

Narrative interior design is a powerful tool in shaping these temporary spaces. By using storytelling, materiality and atmosphere, a meanwhile project can develop its own identity, helping visitors connect with the space in a memorable way. In one recent project, we reappropriated an underused shopping centre and transformed it into a temporary food hall. Rather than treating the space as simply a collection of stalls, we built a narrative around the work of local hero Roald Dahl, using imagination, playfulness and visual storytelling to guide the design.

Dahl’s stories provided a framework for colour, graphics and spatial moments that encouraged exploration. Playful signage, layered textures and unexpected details created a sense of curiosity, turning the everyday act of eating into a small narrative journey. The result was not only a functioning food hall, but a temporary destination that brought people back into a forgotten retail space and gave the building a renewed sense of purpose.