Author: Design Incubation

Social Design: Bridging Two Continents Through Collaboration and Innovation

Students understand their role as designers/co-creators/catalysts within a global context to explore the problem of sustainability

Design Teaching Award Winner

Neeta Verma
Associate Professor
University of Notre Dame

NVerma_EvidenceofOutcome_DIA_2021Download

The aim of this advanced-level course in Social Design was for students to understand their role as designers/co-creators/catalysts within a global context to explore the problem of sustainability. This multi-disciplinary partnership brought together students from the University of Notre Dame (UND) and the National Institute of Design(NID) in India. The cohort of 14 students traveled approximately 17,000 miles, with 19 weeks of working together (3 weeks in India, 2 weeks in the US, and 14 weeks of working virtually). With an emphasis on problem solving and innovation, the learning goal was to examine the problem of sustainability through a cross-cultural prism, in India and the United States— two very divergent socio-economic constructs. The project was funded through a $30,000 grant awarded to the lead faculty. This semester-long collaboration was to help students develop an understanding of social constructs within two divergent economies and look through globally re-contextualized perspectives at the singular issue of sustainability. The course was designed as a solution solution-finding process for a singular problem, where students not only to sought a solution but gained a deeper understanding of complex cultural, social, and economic environments within which design solutions often need to find congruity. The students gained both a depth of understanding and breadth of social competency of the frame of reference within which their solutions were expected to function.

PEDAGOGY:

The course followed an 8-step pedagogical process used in the Social Design class.

Empathy: the understanding the needs, attitudes, and pre-dispositions of a people with whom the designers are working

Immersion: Daily engagement and involvement over a period of time

Awareness: Observations and knowledge gathering of a problem area within its cultural context

Definition: Determining the scope of research and inquiry

Engagement: Understanding stakeholders and their interconnectedness

Synthesis and problem framing: Structuring the context within which the problem is being defined

Design interventions: Collaborative encounters that facilitate solution-finding at the grassroots

Integration: Ensuring that the solution embeds itself within the context from which the problem emerged

OUTCOMES:

A total of six projects were completed. Of those, the one listed below is being showcased: Sustainable Packaging by Kacey Hengesbach (UND), Anupam Garg (NID)

The project looked at packaging trends in the current fruit and vegetable markets supply chain to document non-sustainable packaging trends and explore ways to replace existing packaging solutions with biodegradable alternatives in India.

PROFICIENCIES:

The students developed cultural competencies by discovering ways of navigating new environments. Within research students were introduced to ethnographic research; and empirical investigation through interviews, photo and film documentation, logging daily activity, contextual analysis, and partnering with local individuals working in the supply chains to gain a deeper understanding of the challenges. The project framework for the project focused primarily on a critical understanding of convergence and divergence in problem-framing that helped students position their research in two diametrically different geographies. In some cases, the research yielded similar results between the two contexts and in others, there was great divergence.

RESEARCH PROCESS:

The following steps were used within the design process:

1. Problem Definition

Researching statistics that quantitatively describe the acute problem of plastic consumption and the proportion that is specifically used for fruit and vegetable packaging. Also examined was the per capita consumption of plastics in the United States and India as they compare to world consumption.

2. Researching the market

Students researched the time and distance fruits and vegetables travel to get to markets. They examined the complexity of supply chains and journeys of fruits and vegetables as well as the needs that packaging had to fill along those journeys before arriving at the local wholesale markets.

3. Field research, interviews, and photo documentation

Over two weeks, students visited the wholesale and retail markets to understand the various needs of the vendors and where plastics were replacing traditional materials.

4. Exploring material

Students explored traditionally used regional materials like bulrush, banana, bamboo, and jute but ultimately chose the water hyacinth, a plant that is predominantly found across the world. It has both pliability and high strength in its various stages of drying.

5. Exploring materiality

Students explored the pliability and the tensile strength of the water hyacinth in its various stages of drying. They also examined how different surfaces could be created during each stage of drying to develop surfaces from soft (for protection) to hard (for support and bearing weight) to accommodate the varying needs of the markets.

6. The Design Intervention

For the final design intervention, the proposed solution was a packaging solution that offered a cradle to cradle method made out of naturally biodegradable materials, specifically using water hyacinth in combination with jute and bulrush. The packaging system was customizable, stackable, usable for display, reusable for future use, compactable, and transportable.

7. Project Design Impact

Environment: Creating a product that benefits the environment by ridding it of an invasive species without the use of harmful chemicals.

Economy: Adding income to rural areas that participate in manufacturing.

Culture: Supporting existing regional crafts and using their skills to create sustainable packaging solutions.

COURSE IMPACT:

The course due to its travel component and the complexity of the problem exposed students to contexts that they had never experienced before expanding the classroom globally. Challenges included differences in climate, language, and cultural etiquettes. The academic challenges lay in navigating the research as the students immersed themselves in unfamiliar environments. On the other hand, experiencing the richness of a whole new culture and renegotiating the sense of the self within a new context helped broaden perspectives. The opportunity provided an incredibly enriching experience for design students to immerse themselves within a new social, cultural, and economic order. The experience enabled the design students to gain global perspectives about the implications of design and the impact it can have. Above all, with social innovation at the core of design education today, this experience built confidence and resiliency within students as they situated themselves within diverse contexts and collaborated with others to manage complexity at both global and local scales.

Neeta Verma is an Associate Professor at the University of Notre Dame and situates herself within the porous discipline of Visual Communication Design. Her areas of research and teaching focus on social equity and justice. She teaches Social Design at the intersection of social innovation and collaborative practices, and Visualization of Data that investigates the aesthetics, ethics, and politics of representation. Her current research, supported by a prestigious grant, examines youth violence. She received her MFA from Yale and currently holds Faculty Fellowships at the Center for Social Concerns, the Liu Institute for Asia & Asian Studies, and the Pulte Institute for Global Development at the University of Notre Dame. She is the recipient of several awards including Graphis, Core77, A’Design Awards, and International Design Awards. She has presented her research at both national and international conferences. She serves on the SEGD Academic Task Force and CAA Committee on Design.

Design as a Tool to Counter Structural Oppression

Research that focuses on co-designing socio-cultural technologies, practices, and policies

Design Publication Award Winner

Sheena Erete
Associate Professor, School of Design
College of Computing and Digital Media
DePaul University

Natasha Smith-Walker – Project Exploration
Caitlin Martin

There has been a recent push in technology design to consider social implications of technology design — both historical, current, and future. In resource-constrained communities, there have been historical policies and practices (e.g., redlining, over-policing) that have created concentrated poverty, increased unemployment, and a lack of adequate and equitable educational, housing, and health opportunities. However, several local community-based organizations have taken the initiative to address their communities’ challenges regarding issues such as safety and education. In my work, I have focused on several projects in this vein, where I co-design technologies, practices, and policies with community residents and organizations to support their efforts to counter social issues that are a result of long-term structural oppression. Specifically, two projects that demonstrate my commitment are (1) our co-design and evaluation process of a mobile application to support violence prevention efforts by street outreach workers and (2) the evolution of Digital Youth Divas, our program that encourages middle school Black and Latina girls to engage and participate in STEAM experiences, to a community-wide program that focuses on the transformation of informal learning environments using design practices and data. The first project is an example of how to design with organizations that intentionally attempt to counter traditional policing practices by law enforcement by taking a community-led approach to public safety in neighborhoods that experience high violence. The second project illustrates how we can address policies and infrastructure that create barriers for Black and Latina girls and their families to engage in informal learning opportunities. Insights lead to a discussion regarding how we as designers and researchers can intentionally support community-based counter structures to make a long-term, sustainable impact on communities that have historically faced systemic oppression.

Erete, S., Thomas, K., Nacu, D., Thompson, N., Dickinson, J., Pinkard, N. (2021). “Applying a Transformative Justice Approach to Encourage the Participation of Black and Latina Girls in Computing.” ACM Transactions on Computing Education (TOCE).

Dr. Sheena Erete is a designer, researcher, educator, and community advocate, whose research focuses on co-designing socio-cultural technologies, practices, and policies with community residents to amplify their local efforts in addressing issues such as violence, education, civic engagement and health. The objective of her work is to create more just and equitable outcomes and futures for those who have historically and who currently face structural oppression. Her research has won several best paper awards in top venues such as ACM CHI, CSCW, and SIGCSE as well a diversity and inclusion award for her collaborative work dissecting oppression that exists in the field of computing, HCI, and design. Her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority, and several philanthropic foundations including the Polk Bros. Foundation, Pritzker Pucker Family Foundation, and McCormick Foundation. She is currently an associate professor in the College of Computing and Digital Media at DePaul University in Chicago, IL where she also co-directs the Technology for Social Good Research and Design Lab. Dr. Erete received Bachelor of Science degrees in Mathematics and Computer Science from Spelman College. She received a Masters in Computer Science from Georgia Tech and a Ph.D. in Technology & Social Behavior from Northwestern University.

The 2021 Design Incubation Communication Design Awards

2021 Design Incubation Educators Awards competition in 4 categories: Creative Work, Published Research, Teaching, Service

Congratulations to the recipients of the 2021 Communication Design Awards!

Scholarship: Creative Works

Unawarded

Scholarship: Published Research

Published Design Research Award Winner

Design as a Tool to Counter Structural Oppression

Sheena Erete
Associate Professor, School of Design
College of Computing and Digital Media
DePaul University

Natasha Smith-Walker – Project Exploration
Caitlin Martin

Category: Teaching Award

Design Teaching Award Winner

Social Design: Bridging Two Continents Through Collaboration and Innovation

Neeta Verma
Associate Professor
University of Notre Dame

Design Teaching Award Runner Up

Semiotics Studio
Aggie Toppins
Associate Professor
Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts 
Washington University in St. Louis

Category: Service Award

Service Design Award Winner

Uttar Pradesh’s First Breastfeeding Cubicle

Sarah Tanishka Nethan
Researcher
Community Empowerment Lab 

Shatarupa Bandopadhyay, Former Art Fellow, Community Empowerment Lab

Abdul Qadir, Graphic Designer, Community Empowerment Lab

Aarti Kumar, CEO, Community Empowerment Lab

Vishwajeet Kumar, Principal Scientist, Community Empowerment Lab

Category: Graduate Work

Unawarded

2021 Jury

  • Gail Anderson, School of Visual Arts, New York
  • John Bowers, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois
  • Lesley-Ann Noel, North Carolina State University, North Carolina
  • Maria Rogal, University of Florida, Florida
  • Lucille Tenazas, Parsons School of Design, New York
  • Teal Triggs (Chair), Royal College of Art, London

Biographies

GAIL ANDERSON

Gail Anderson is an NYC-based designer, educator, and writer. She is Chair of BFA Design and BFA Advertising at the School of Visual Arts and the creative director at Visual Arts Press. Anderson has served as senior art director at Rolling Stone, creative director of design at SpotCo, and as a designer at The Boston Globe Sunday Magazine and Vintage Books. She has taught at SVA for thirty years and has coauthored 15 books on design, typography, and illustration with the fabulous Steven Heller. 

Anderson serves on the Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee for the US Postal Service and the advisory boards of Poster House and The One Club for Creativity. She is an AIGA Medalist and the 2018 recipient of the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Lifetime Achievement Award for Design. Her work is represented in the Library of Congress’s permanent collections, the Milton Glaser Design Archives, and the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

JOHN BOWERS

John Bowers is chair of the Visual Communication Design department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Through making, writing, and teaching, he explores issues of individual and collective identity. His making practice repurposes newspapers from public to private record, and billboard paper into forms that address their underlying targeting strategies and have been sold through Printed Matter. He worked as a Senior Identity Designer at Landor (San Francisco) during the dot-com bubble. His professional work has been published in 365: AIGA, Communication Arts, ID, and Graphis. His writing includes “A Lesson from Spirograph,” (Design Observer), Introduction to Two-Dimensional Design: Understanding Form and Function, Second Edition (Wiley), and Visual Communication Design Teaching Strategies, which isposted on the AIGA Educators Community website. He has been a curriculum consultant and visiting designer in the US, Canada, and Sweden.

LESLEY-ANN NOEL

Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel is a faculty member at the College of Design at North Carolina State University. She has a BA in Industrial Design from the Universidade Federal do Paraná, in Curitiba, Brazil, a Master’s in Business Administration from the University of the West Indies in Trinidad and Tobago and a Ph.D. in Design from North Carolina State University. 

Lesley-Ann practices design through emancipatory, critical, and anti-hegemonic lenses,  focusing on equity, social justice, and the experiences of people who are often excluded from design research, primarily in the area of social innovation, education and public health. She also attempts to promote greater critical awareness among designers and design students by introducing critical theory concepts and vocabulary into the design studio e.g. through The Designer’s Critical Alphabet.

She is co-Chair of the Pluriversal Design Special Interest Group of the Design Research Society.

MARIA ROGAL

Maria Rogal is a Professor of Graphic Design and founding director of MFA in Design & Visual Communications at the University of Florida. She is the founder of D4D Lab, an award-winning initiative codesigning with indigenous entrepreneurs and subject matter experts to support autonomy and self-determination. After over a decade working with partners in México, she cofounded Codesigning Equitable Futures to foster respectful collaborations among the university and local community in Gainesville, Florida. She continues to speak and write about social and codesign, recently presenting at Pivot 2020, and co-authored “CoDesigning for Development,” which appears in The Routledge Handbook of Sustainable Design. Her research has been funded by AIGA, Sappi, and Fulbright programs, among others, and her creative design work has been featured in national and international juried exhibitions.

LUCILLE TENAZAS

Lucille Tenazas is an educator and graphic designer based in New York and San Francisco. Her work is at the intersection of typography and linguistics, with design that reflects complex and poetic means of visual expression. She is the Henry Wolf Professor of Communication Design at Parsons School of Design and was the Associate Dean in the School of Art, Media and Technology from 2013-2020. She taught at California College of the Arts (CCA) for 20 years, where she developed the MFA Design program with an interdisciplinary approach, focusing on form-giving, teaching and leadership.

Lucille was the national president of the AIGA from 1996-98 and was awarded the AIGA Medal in 2013 for her lifetime contribution to design practice and outstanding leadership in design education. She received the National Design Award for Communication Design by the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum in 2002. Originally from Manila, the Philippines, Lucille studied at CCA and received her MFA in Design from Cranbrook Academy of Art.

TEAL TRIGGS (CHAIR)

Teal Triggs is Professor of Graphic Design and leads on the MPhil/PhD programme in the School of Communication, Royal College of Art, London. As a graphic design historian, critic and educator she has lectured and broadcast widely and her writings have appeared in numerous edited books and international design publications. Triggs’s research focuses on design pedagogy, criticism, self-publishing, and feminism. She is Associate Editor of Design Issues (MIT Press) and was founding Editor-in-Chief of Communication Design (Taylor & Francis/ico-D). Her recent books include: co-editor with Professor Leslie Atzmon of The Graphic Design Reader (Bloomsbury), author of Fanzines (Thames & Hudson)and the children’s book The School of Art (Wide Eyed Editions) which was shortlisted for the ALCS 2016 Educational Writer’s Award. She is Fellow of the Design Research Society, International Society of Typographic Designers and the Royal Society of Arts.

Exploring the Research Map: Thoughts on Design Research Investigations

An Affiliated Society Meeting at the 110th Annual CAA Conference

Join Design Incubation – Business Meeting on Thursday, March 3, 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM at the 110th Annual CAA Conference. Free and open to the public.

Design Incubation Directors Jessica Barness, Liz DeLuna, Camila Afanador-Llach, and Dan Wong will moderate a discussion on the mapping of design research and its development trajectory.

Design Incubation recently launched a new initiative to map current activities in Communication Design Research and Scholarship (R&S). We kicked off this project at the international Design Research Society (DRS) Festival of Emergence 2021, and workshopped a second phase with AIGA DEC November 2021. This map is a collaborative, living, visual document that will further establish historical precedents and future trajectories for Communication Design R&S. Join us as we share progress, generate dialogue, and continue to shape this project.

Academic Marginality and Exclusion for Graphic Design Educators of the United States

Visual design education is rapidly shifting from Western and print-centric to diversifying with emerging technology and globalization

Yeohyun Ahn
Assistant Professor
University of Wisconsin-Madison

Graphic Design has been a predominantly white and European-centric academic area deeply rooted in Bauhaus, a German art school from 1919 to 1933, combining crafts and the fine arts to approach constructive and universal design for mass production. It has dominated modern graphic design for over 100 years. Now visual design education is rapidly shifting from Western and print-centric to diversifying with emerging technology and globalization. This research aims to create original and impactful exhibition design and research opportunities (symposium) for academically underrepresented and marginal graphic design educators in the United States. The study investigates the future of visual design education and research, crossing boundaries among creative coding, 3d printing, Guerrilla projection, speculative design, sound, data visualization, augmented reality with activism, and cultural identity impacted by globalization. It results in an original exhibition design that frames a newly curated exhibition. The curated exhibition invites sixteen outstanding visual design educators of the US who are highly regarded but academically undervalued and depreciated from conservative, homogenous, and print-centric professional graphic design communities. The design methodology, Design Thinking, is employed to create the user-friendly and inclusive interface design for the virtual reality gallery. The virtual exhibition brings global exposure and tap into an extensive network of academically underrepresented graphic design educators and underserved audiences. The exhibition visitors gain new in-person and immersive virtual experiences for evolving graphic design. It incubates new visual design perspectives being open-minded, alternative, diverse, and inclusive visual communication design education, practices, research, and communities of the US.

This research was presented at the Design Incubation Colloquium 8.2: Annual CAA Conference on Thursday, March 3, 2022.

The Black Experience in Design

An anthology featuring a range of perspectives from a Black/African diasporic lens.

Kelly Walters
Assistant Professor
Parsons, The New School

Anne H. Berry
Assistant Professor
Cleveland State University

This research was presented at the Design Incubation Colloquium 8.2: Annual CAA Conference on Thursday, March 3, 2022.

The Black Experience in Design, is a forthcoming anthology co-authored by Anne H. Berry, Kareem Collie, Peni Laker, Lesley-Ann Noel, Jennifer Rittner and Kelly Walters. Featuring over 50 design contributors, this book centers a range of perspectives, teaching practices, and conversations from a Black/African diasporic lens. Through the voices represented, this text exemplifies the inherently collaborative and multidisciplinary nature of design, providing access to ideas and topics for a variety of audiences, meeting people as they are and wherever they are in their knowledge about design. The aim of this presentation is to share highlights from The Black Experience in Design and demonstrate its impact on current design discourse. Ultimately, The Black Experience in Design serves as both inspiration and a catalyst for the next generation of creative minds tasked with imagining, shaping, and designing our future.

This research was presented at the Design Incubation Colloquium 8.2: Annual CAA Conference on Thursday, March 3, 2022.

A Theory of Design Identity

We are moving away from melting pot identity metaphors toward the idea of a rainbow

Colette Gaiter
Professor
Departments of Africana Studies and Art & Design, University of Delaware

Racial and other identity connotations are essential in design and visual communication analysis. Just as historical and economic conditions contextualize designed objects, omitting identities causes incomplete and biased design history. A look at the designs commissioned for the 2021 Oscars examines how minimizing some designers’ identities when talking about their work creates de-facto hierarchies and inside/outside attitudes toward creators.

Generally, unless a visual communication product is clearly biased in its presentation and intent, embedded social connotations are considered benign. Examining all identity representations is essential for insightful design analysis. In the news coverage examples presented, the Black designer’s heritage is most clearly connected to elements in his work.

“Design Identity Theory” is analogous to applying Critical Race Theory to law practice. Expanding Laswell’s Model of Communication that considers (1) Who (2) Says What (3) In Which Channel (4) To Whom (5) With what effect?, a thorough analysis of “Who” and “To Whom” would include all socially defining identities. Analysis does not automatically imply bias but expands historical and cultural context. Explicitly naming aspects of all designers’ backgrounds deflects stereotyping by foregrounding identity’s complexity.

We are moving away from melting pot identity metaphors toward the seemingly trite but accurate idea of a rainbow, where colors blend but are still individually visible and essential to the entire effect—acknowledging and celebrating difference. “Design Identity Theory” fills in historical gaps, expands culture, and helps build a more equitable society.

This research was presented at the Design Incubation Colloquium 8.2: Annual CAA Conference on Thursday, March 3, 2022.

Interdisciplinary Human-Centered Design Research – Overcoming Practical Challenges Before and During The Pandemic Time – A Pragmatic Approach to Design Education and Practice

A project to improve VA technology for veterans with spinal cord injuries

Sam Anvari
Assistant Professor
California State University Long Beach

This presentation proposal covers the practical approach and various pedagogical measures taken to form a team of fourteen students and two faculty from Graphic Design and Psychology to improve VA technology for veterans with spinal cord injuries. This multidisciplinary project is ongoing research between California State University Long Beach, the Spinal Cord Injuries and Disorders (SCI/D) Center at the Long Beach VA Hospital, and the device manufacturer, Accessibility Services, Inc. in Florida. The project’s goal is to improve the design usability of the Environmental Control Unit (ECU), which patients with SCI/D use to complete everyday tasks such as making a phone call, calling the nurse, controlling the TV, adjusting the bed, etc. The project started in 2019 by performing heuristic evaluations on the ECU device with a team of seven students and faculty from psychology, health science, and graphic design. Findings from this work identified system elements needing improvement for better user experience and visual interfaces design.

Despite the pandemic and its associated lockdown conditions, the research team successfully transitioned to the project’s next phase, design A/B testing, online. The faculty leaders scheduled virtual weekly meetings with the team and developed an alternative plan to continue the project. In 2020, students worked tirelessly to a digital prototype of the device that is accessible remotely online within the safe space of the home. The ECU device’s online prototype made it possible for the research team to apply design changes and prepare for remote user testing. In the meantime, the research team grew more extensive, with five students from the graphic design program, eight students from the Psychology Human Factors program, and another two students from the university’s undergraduate research opportunity program (UROP). This presentation will discuss various tools and methods for human-centered applied design and networking with the industry.

This research was presented at the Design Incubation Colloquium 8.2: Annual CAA Conference on Thursday, March 3, 2022.

Colored Bodies: Cultural Constructs in Standard Color Theory Pedagogy

Some of the most problematic aspects of standard color theory education

Aaron Fine
Professor
Truman State University

Color theory is often presented as a purely formal matter, with no suggestion that the color we are speaking of might apply to our bodies and all that they entail in terms of race, class, and gender. Despite the availability of focused research on isolated aspects of this problem, and more inclusive chapters being added to standard color theory textbooks, our default mode is to privilege a narrative that invokes the color science of Isaac Newton. We often imply that color wheels, primaries, and secondaries are universally applicable phenomena. But the truth is that each of these is a cultural construct with at best a tenuous connection to the natural laws of physics. And when Winckelmann stated, in his discipline founding writings, that “a beautiful body will, accordingly, be the more beautiful the whiter it is” he made perfectly clear that the more (or less) white bodies he was speaking of were our own. 

Drawing on content from my recently published book Color Theory: A Critical Introduction, I will discuss briefly some of the most problematic aspects of standard color theory education and suggest some of the ways we might improve our theory, practice, and pedagogy in this area. Topics include the rise of colorimetry in the mid 20th century, the embrace of spiritual notions about color, and colonialist views of certain cultures being more “colorful” than others. Grounded in scholarly research this presentation is relevant to design theory and pedagogy, but also has implications for creative practice. 

This research was presented at the Design Incubation Colloquium 8.2: Annual CAA Conference on Thursday, March 3, 2022.

Architecture and Design Students Envision the Post-COVID Built Environment

How designers can prepare for the next pandemic by looking at it as a human-centered design initiative

Denise Anderson
Assistant Professor
Michael Graves College, Kean University

Craig Konyk
Associate Professor
Michael Graves College, Kean University

Kylie Mena
Michael Graves College, Kean University

Varrianna Siryon
Michael Graves College, Kean University

Humanity will call upon architects and designers to respond to the resulting modified human behaviors and built environment in the post-COVID-19 world. These areas include the need for flexibility of public spaces and interior layouts, rethinking product designs, and strategies for informational campaigns and digital safety platforms using an integrated design approach.

In spring 2021, a team of interdisciplinary students and faculty at the Michael Graves College were awarded a grant to explore how designers can prepare for the next pandemic by looking at it as a human-centered design initiative. The objective was to utilize the expertise areas of Architecture, Graphic Design, Industrial Design, and Interior Design to research the pandemic’s effects on public spaces and propose design strategies to improve communities. For example, as part of a university-wide initiative on pandemic research, students proposed design solutions for the safe opening of Kean’s childcare center.

In the summer, as the world managed and changed due to the Delta variant and the anti- vaccine movement, further investigations into two areas hit hardest by the pandemic were explored: education and mental health. Extended research was conducted on special needs children and the increased anxiety that led to panic buying.

The presentation will examine the interdisciplinary design thinking process and solutions for the childcare center. It will present methodology soliciting support in undergraduate and graduate courses to identify pandemic-related problems and solutions. Furthermore, it will answer how design and architecture can help envision what communities need to manage and thrive in a post-COVID-19 environment.

This research was presented at the Design Incubation Colloquium 8.2: Annual CAA Conference on Thursday, March 3, 2022.