Teaching Sustainability in Interior Design
This program will address ideas for a unifying pedagogy needed to teach holistic, human-centered interior design to the next generation of students and professionals. Grazyna Pilatowicz initiated and fostered the innovative, research-based Sustainable Interior Environments Graduate Program at FIT and seeks to broaden the conversation with the profession in New York City.
Educators and professionals are now accustomed to the need for integrated design where interior designers, architects, engineers, and other stakeholders shape the quality of a particular building in its context. But that is no longer enough. To teach interior design that sustains is to teach a symbiotic design based on systems thinking that assures understanding of the far-reaching direct impacts all design decisions have on inextricably connected human experience, health and wellbeing, and the quality and health of the natural environment.
Speakers:
Nadia Elrokhsy, AIA. LEED AP, CPHD &T, is Assistant Professor of Sustainable Interior Design and Interim Director of the BFA in Architectural Design and the BS in Urban Design programs at Parsons School of Design, The New School. She is also principal at an architecture, interiors, and strategic design consulting firm. In her teaching and professional practice she focuses on design as a means of exploring and furthering new economic and social systems that enable more sustainable consumption practices—new models in building resilient urban conditions. Elrokhsy defines design for resilience as design that not only addresses our ability to “bounce-back” but also transform, regenerate, and evolve forward with the ever-changing circumstances that come with climate change. Her practice includes projects in environmental design and healthy interiors. She recently served on a professional sustainability taskforce and serves on a number of sustainability committees.
Ethan Lu, IIDA, AIA, NCIDQ, IDEC, LEED AP BD+C is the Acting Director of Undergraduate Programs and a Program Director of the Master of Professional Studies in Sustainable Interior Environments at the New York School of Interior Design. He is a Principal at Metropolitan United Studio PLLC and worked at FXFOWLE and CookFox Architects from 2001 – 2006. Lu received his M.S. in Architecture and Urban Design from Columbia University, M. Arch from Harvard University, and B.S. in Architecture from the University of Michigan.
Tetsu Ohara, IIDA, LEED AP, has been integrating sustainability concerns at Pratt Institute since 2007. As an Adjunct Associate Professor and the director of sustainability for Interior Design Department, he has participated in variety of efforts in improving Interior Environmental Quality & Life Cycle Assessment issues surrounding the profession through core studio. As part of the Sustainability Minor course, he teaches Biomimicry course for both undergraduate & graduate students. Involvements on campus include Accreditation (NASAD, CIDA), Greenweek, Sustainability Coalition, Institute wide Coordination of Sustainability Integration and CSDS. His office, SpatialDesignStudio, delivers energy efficient, environmentally sound, smart design to the involved projects.
Grazyna Pilatowicz, IDEC, IIDA, LEED AP, is a full time faculty member, Assoc. Professor at the Interior Design Program of the Fashion Institute of Technology, SUNY where she is teaching design studios, research and programming, and a course based on her book Eco–Interiors: A Guide to Environmentally Conscious Interior Design, one of the first textbooks devoted to sustainability in interior design translated for Japanese and Korean editions. In 2011 she initiated, developed, and launched the Sustainable Interior Environments Graduate Program. She is one of the leaders of sustainability efforts at her college and served as a co-chair of the FIT President’s Sustainability Council for seven years. As an interior design professional, she provides expertise for institutional projects. Her professional practice includes 14 years of work as an in-house interior designer for the nation’s largest non-profit substance abuse education, prevention and treatment agency. She is NCIDQ certified, LEED accredited, and holds a M.A. in Art History from the KUL in Poland and a BFA in Interior Design from FIT/SUNY. She is an active professional member of IDEC, IIDA, and US GBC.
Organized by: AIA New York
Price: Free for AIA members and students with valid ID; $10 for non-members
