Interior Design Educator’s Council (IDEC) – Innovative Teaching Award 2023 (x2) [Peer-reviewed]
- Graduate Interior Design Studio: An Exploration of Animal Care Facility Design
The Graduate Interior Design Studio focused on the unique typology of Animal Care Facility design. Students were asked to design a multitude of spaces that would respond to this typology, including housing, surgery, training, recreation, and administrative spaces. The term-long project required students to engage in various design aspects, including literature analysis, site analysis, drone scanning, point cloud integration, scaled model building, digital fabrication, programming, space planning, 3D development of interior environments, animal care facility tours, and presentation drawings. Collaboration plays a significant role in this course as students will receive lectures from aligned disciplines, such as landscape architecture, and lectures and critiques from practicing design professionals in the field of animal care design. Assignments throughout the term will build upon the previous work, allowing students to engage in the project’s ideation to a completed design.
- Winter Workshop (Nature and Nordic Recreational Centre Studio)
The 2023 undergraduate interior design studio tasked students with designing an interpretive nature centre and Nordic recreational facility. The first assignment of this studio focused on a multi-day design charrette that required each student to reenvision a winter activity and design an object that appropriately responds to the reimagined activity. The object can be created in one of two manners: (1) The object can be created from scratch (e.g., self-ideated, sketched, and fabricated), or (2) The object can be a modification of existing artifacts (e.g., a modified snowshoe, ice skate, etc.). This assignment required each student to produce hand drawings, hand-made objects, digital fabrications, and concise concept statements. Students were challenged to have their object emphasize innovative design, unique construction methods, andlow-cost materials. The skills gained in the workshop provided the students with a strong understanding of connection methods, design language, scale, materiality, texture, and proper documentation procedures. These skills would be applied and built upon in subsequent assignments throughout the studio term.
Interior Design Educator’s Council (IDEC) – Innovative Teaching Award 2021 [Peer-reviewed]
- Supportive Housing: Interior Design Studio
The studio explores complex interior design projects by examining contemporary typologies related to housing needs. Students engage in various aspects of interior design, including research, site analysis, programming, space planning, 3D development of interior environments, detailing, digital fabrication, working drawings, and immersive video walkthroughs. Collaboration plays a significant role in this course as students are asked to produce research in groups, engage in peer reviews, seminar discussions, and online presentations. Additionally, local and international guest speakers are invited to discuss relevant topics related to the role of interior design in supportive housing and critique student work. Finally, students will learn about integrated design resulting from working with invited guests, subject matter experts, and allied professionals. The studio will be conducted primarily through synchronous and asynchronous remote teaching due to the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic.
Interior Design Educator’s Council (IDEC) – Innovative Teaching Award 2020 [Peer-reviewed]
- ED4 Media Arts Centre Studio
The studio project required students to design a media arts centre. The proposed environment would host education workshops, public exhibition spaces, and media arts production studios. Students were expected to develop design strategies that relate to the contemporary and future needs of the media arts centre typology. Each student’s project was not to exceed three floors and have an overall size of Approx. 700 – 840 m2 (7500 – 9000 ft2). Consideration toward modularity, accessibility, acoustic treatments, multifunctional spaces, and appropriate partitioning of space was a programmatic requirement. However, each individual’s research, concept, and design approach would ultimately inform their spatial programming.
Interior Design Canada (IDC) – PROpel Top 20 Emerging Design Professionals (2018)
“PROpel is a national competition created exclusively for emerging leaders, providing the opportunity for engagement in discussions and connections with influential representatives in the interior design community. Each participant will be announced as part of a promotional series on a weekly basis with a short profile published across IDC’s social media platforms, newsletters, and honoured at the IDC Awards Celebration this fall.”