Interior Design Studio IV
This studio explores combining issues of health and wellness with design equity, inclusion and diversity.The acute need of our user groups this semester is health, wellness, stabilization and recovery.We address these issues by employing global design strategies, based on research and data, that critically analyze through qualitative and quantitative methods conventional barriers to universal equity, inclusion and diversity.Our challenge is to create innovative physical environments that foster healing, hope, trust, recovery, comfort and inclusion for all demographics including racial and ethnic groups.We will address this challenge in ways that open us up to authentic possibilities and outcomes through projects including addressing the growing need for housing for the homeless experiencing mental health challenges, and community sites and schools reckoning with legacies of historic racism.
To address the issues of equity, inclusion and diversity, we overlay the design process with a program called Racism Untaught that looks at Revealing and Unlearning Racialized Design.This program helps to foster conversations and safe learning environments focused on difficult and uncomfortable social, cultural and racial issues to ensure new ideas, critical thinking and diverse and alternative forms of making.