WASHINGTON, D.C.—The American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) Foundation announces the recipients of the second annual Interior Design Research Grant Program, Transform, which focuses on applied research in interior design and human behavior. This year’s grants total $115,000 and include:
Recipient: Drexel University
Research Project: Ameliorating symptoms of dementia at St. Francis Country House: Evidence-based design study of the efficacy of a daylight-matching, low-energy LED luminaire prototype.
Drexel University, in collaboration with the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, is developing an automatic diurnal/seasonal daylight-matching LED luminaire to reduce symptoms of dementia in elderly residents at the St. Francis Country House skilled nursing facility. The LED luminaire will address the dual sustainability issues of energy efficiency and health/well-being of building occupants by providing quality illumination for visual tasks and synchronizing biological rhythms for better health, cognitive ability and performance for patients.
Recipient: Angela Bourne, Ph.D. student, environmental design, Texas Tech University
Research Project: A prototype for therapeutic living and the enrichment of environments for aging adults with intellectual developmental disabilities and autism spectrum disorder.
While the Americans with Disabilities Act has done much to make buildings accessible for people with physical impairments, it has limited impact on environmental accessibility issues for people with intellectual disabilities. This study will provide design guidelines and prototypes for the development of therapeutic living communities for an aging population of individuals with intellectual developmental disabilities and autism spectrum disorders who suffer from Alzheimer’s disease. The research will explore how interior design can enhance these individuals’ behavior and well-being.
Recipient: The Center for Health Design
Research Project: Developing a standard evidence-based patient room interior design checklist and evaluation tool.
This project will include the development of a web-based patient room interior design checklist to support design decision making, and a patient room evaluation tool that can be used for existing facilities or renovation/new construction projects. The patient room interior design checklist and evaluation tool will address a critical need in the industry by providing access to the healthcare design evaluation tools in an accessible and actionable format.
“We are so proud to be able to award the ASID Foundation Transform Grant to each of these three recipients,” says ASID Foundation Chair Judy Pickett, FASID. “Their work will significantly add to our ever-growing body of knowledge, demonstrating the value of interior design through evidenced-based design.”