Healthy Places

Workshop

WE11 - A Designer and Neurologist's Approach to Empathic Design

Speaker(s)

• 

  Barbara Vail

  Interior Designer
  Barbara Vail Design
• 

  Joel Salinas, MD, MBA, MSc

  Creator, Author, Speaker, Sensory Neurologist
  Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School

Empathic design is crucial because--as humans with diverse bodies, brains, and backgrounds--we all have different needs and desires. We seek to satisfy these in individual and often deeply personal ways, though we don’t often consider how we can create a space in our immediate environment that satisfies these regularly. Interior designer Barbara Vail and behavioral neurologist Joel Salinas, MD, will identify life situations in which the designer can serve as a specialist and educator in creating a space that is human-centered, thoughtful, and reflective of the inhabitants. Specific case studies will be referenced, including the apartment design for Dr. Salinas, to illustrate useful ways an empathic approach can be used to leverage unique design opportunities and address both typical and atypical challenges. The unusual backgrounds of both Barbara and Joel offer a special multi-disciplinary view into why empathic design tools are critical when co-creating a space with your client.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand why empathic design is crucial for health and well-being. This includes how new neuroscientific findings can be applied to empathic design.
• Identify three specific life situations where the interior designer can serve as a specialist and educator to explore why and how to co-create a supportive environment.
• Define examples of why and how to link human wants and needs to their spaces through accessibility, function, and mind-body support. One case being that of Dr. Joel Salinas.
• Outline specific empathic tools designers can use to co-create environments that promote accessibility, function, and mind-body support, including pros, cons, and troubleshooting each tool.