The paper considers culture as a collection of meanings which are produced and consumed by a given social group. Thus, the generation of meaning would be analogous to the generation of culture. In the investigation of architectural (built) artefacts it is unusual to identify a representative sample; instead research focus is on the in-­depth precedent study. The purpose of this paper is to identify selection criteria for such a broad corpus of interior design artefacts (which may be studied from a semiotic perspective) as grounded theory requires a large and broad data sample. This is a novel application.

This paper will consider the role of the interior design researcher as domain gate-keeper in the determination of criteria to select a future corpus of interior design artefacts for semiotic analysis. It will conduct a literature review of interior design and social theory to identify selection criteria. The analytic purpose and selection criteria serve as example from which broader principles are identified.