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This paper explores how students connect meaningfully with theory through the aesthetic experiences of problem solving together in the context of a workshop. It can be challenging for students studying design in university programs to understand how theory is relevant, when applied in practical design studio activities. In the colour workshop presented, students participate in brainstorming exercises to create proposals. Theory is made meaningful through learning activities, including a creative brainstorming session animated by both teachers and industry guests. The experience described was enthusiastically received, with the academia-industry collaboration providing a valuable platform for knowledge exchange both among students and teachers.

This research project presents the activities of a ‘relaxed performance’ in the Segal Centre for the Performing Arts, situated in Montreal, Canada, to understand how transforming the environment supports both performers and audiences alike. It proceeds with four phases, embracing a participatory approach. A particularly innovative aspect of this project was the composition of a research team that included the researchers, Segal Centre employees, local community partners and cultural groups, and rehabilitation research centres in the greater Montreal area. The outcomes of this project are theatre-specific adaptations that will benefit the Centre for all future events. They include changes to the physical aspects of the environment, the security within the theatre space itself, the development of a tactile map as an accessibility technology, a linguistically accessible information pamphlet and audio description to provide auditory-access to the visual elements of the performance.

Using a constructivist approach, this study focuses on how the design and the physical environment of one contemporary hospital in Canada are perceived by the healthcare professionals and how these factors affect their work and their well-being. Data was collected by observing the physical setting and healthcare professionals’ behavior and included semi-structured interviews of 44 healthcare professionals of two care units during 3 months in 2018. The analysis is based on both comparative and interpretive approaches. Results showed that this physical environment is supportive of the work of healthcare professionals and, keeping in mind the linear spatial organization and decentralized layout, this study highlights the importance of adapting the organizational and management system to the spatial configuration of care units in order to achieve the performance and the well-being of these healthcare professionals.

Mene par le CRIR et ses partenaires, le projet Laboratoire Vivant de Readaptation, RehabMaLL, collabore a la creation d’un environnement facilitant la participation et l’inclusion des personnes de tous âges, particulierement de celles vivant avec des incapacites physiques, dans un centre commercial du centre-ville de Montreal. Hormis le partenaire principal, FPI COMINAR, proprietaire du centre commercial, le projet inclut des milieux communautaires et associatifs, cliniques, le prive, ainsi que des chercheurs et des industriels locaux, nationaux et internationaux. Cette initiative decoule de l’engagement actif et de la synergie entre des chercheurs et des partenaires qui se sont donne pour but de faire disparaitre les obstacles crees par des environnements physiques et sociaux discriminants. Cette transformation se realise au travers de solutions innovantes et de strategies visant la reduction des inegalites et la promotion de l’accessibilite, du bien-etre et, par consequent, de la sante des Quebecois.

Cette étude de terrain s’intéresse à l’accessibilité des personnes âgées à un centre commercial montréalais (nommé « Alexis Nihon ») pour lequel des aménagements accessibles ont été réalisés. Le centre commercial constitue un incitatif à la marche et est un lieu de rencontre pour les personnes âgées. Agir sur l’accessibilité à ce type de lieu dans la ville est susceptible de contribuer à leur mobilité et à leur maintien en santé. Cet article développe un cadre d’analyse utilisant l’approche de la « post-occupancy evaluation » (POE). Dans un premier temps, à l’aide de l’audit de marchabilité MAPPA et d’autres grilles d’observations, les parcours urbains de l’extérieur du centre commercial vers ses accès ont été évalués. Dans un second temps, nous avons confronté cette caractérisation avec le regard de personnes âgées fréquentant régulièrement ce centre commercial. Les résultats montrent la performance d’accessibilité urbaine des aménagements, même si plusieurs obstacles peuvent rendre l’expérience de marche des personnes âgées moins agréable, voire dangereuse. De ce fait, nous supposons que l’aménagement urbain aux abords des centres commerciaux doit favoriser la sociabilité du lieu (modes de vie des personnes âgées) et mieux arrimer cette destination avec le reste de la ville (mobilité). This article focuses on seniors’ accessibility to a Montreal shopping centre (Alexis Nihon) for which accessible design has been implemented. The shopping centre is both an incentive to walk and a meeting place for seniors. Acting on accessibility of this type of place in the city is likely to contribute to seniors’ mobility and health. This article develops an analytical framework using the post-occupancy evaluation (POE) approach. Initially, using the MAPPA walkability audit and other observation grids, urban routes toward the shopping centre as well its entrances were characterized. Secondly, we confronted this characterization to the point of view of seniors who regularly visit this shopping centre. The results show the performance of design adaptations around the destination in terms of urban accessibility, although several obstacles may make seniors’ walking experience less pleasant or even unsafe. As a result, we assume that urban development around shopping centres must promote the place sociability (seniors’ lifestyles) and better align this destination with the rest of the city (mobility).

The aim of this study was to explore how shopping malls could be used during rehabilitation and to identify the facilitators and barriers to their use.Two focus groups, conducted with 15 rehabilitation professionals from various disciplines and working with people with disabilities of all ages were structured around two topics: (i) The usage of malls for rehabilitation and (ii) Factors that facilitate or limit rehabilitation professionals' use of the mall as an environment for clinical assessment and/or intervention.The thematic analysis revealed that shopping malls were used to achieve several rehabilitation goals targeting physical and cognitive skills, psychological health and socialization. This real-life environment is motivating and helps foster independence and normalization. Factors affecting mall use during rehabilitation included personal factors (e.g. clients' personality and level of readiness) and environmental factors (e.g. clinical context, accessibility of the mall and social attitudes of store owners).Shopping malls may be a relevant rehabilitation assessment and treatment environment that could contribute to optimizing community integration of people with disabilities. Implications for rehabilitation To ensure successful community reintegration, clients could be trained at some point during their rehabilitation, to perform activities in real-life settings, such as a shopping mall. Shopping malls appear to enable the attainment of rehabilitation goals targeting a variety of skills. This real-life environment appears to be motivating and helps foster independence and normalization. Factors felt to affect mall use during rehabilitation include personal factors (e.g. clients' personality and level of readiness) and environmental factors (e.g. clinical context, accessibility of the mall and social attitudes of store owners). The shopping mall may be an untapped resource as it appears to be a relevant rehabilitation assessment and treatment environment that could contribute to optimizing community integration of people with disabilities.

Although public environments provide opportunities for participation and social inclusion, they are not always inclusive spaces and may not accommodate the wide diversity of people. The Rehabilitation Living Lab in the Mall is a unique, interdisciplinary, and multi-sectoral research project with an aim to transform a shopping complex in Montreal, Canada, into an inclusive environment optimizing the participation and social inclusion of all people.The PRECEDE-PROCEDE Model (PPM), a community-oriented and participatory planning model, was applied as a framework. The PPM is comprised of nine steps divided between planning, implementation, and evaluation.The PPM is well suited as a framework for the development of an inclusive mall. Its ecological approach considers the environment, as well as the social and individual factors relating to mall users' needs and expectations. Transforming a mall to be more inclusive is a complex process involving many stakeholders. The PPM allows the synthesis of several sources of information, as well as the identification and prioritization of key issues to address. The PPM also helps to frame and drive the implementation and evaluate the components of the project.This knowledge can help others interested in using the PPM to create similar enabling and inclusive environments world-wide. Implication for rehabilitation While public environments provide opportunities for participation and social inclusion, they are not always inclusive spaces and may not accommodate the wide diversity of people. The PRECEDE PROCEDE Model (PPM) is well suited as a framework for the development, implementation, and evaluation of an inclusive mall. Environmental barriers can negatively impact the rehabilitation process by impeding the restoration and augmentation of function. Removing barriers to social participation and independent living by improving inclusivity in the mall and other environments positively impacts the lives of people with disabilities.

This paper explores how students in a Quebec university encounter world humanitarian crises within the context of a refugee camp in Jordan, explored from the perspective of co-creation within a design class workshop.1 Students2 create solutions together in groups, using a project-based approach that incorporates collaborative learning and integrate aesthetic thinking with ethical and sustainable proposals that consider humanity within camps. They develop potentially usable solutions that are then presented to experts in the humanitarian community. The workshop goals, learning activities, and results are presented with three examples of student projects. In this type of learning environment, project-based approaches frame co-creation and collaborative learning.

Accessibility to buildings promotes social participation through the application of inclusive design. However, architectural frameworks for constructing accessibility ramps are based on scant scientific evidence. This article presents a statement of established standards for construction criteria for accessibility ramps and makes recommendations from the perspective of inclusive design. A literature review was performed using the databases Medline, OTseeker, PsycINFO, and CINAHL (2000 to 2013), combining keywords referring to: universal accessibility, inclusive design, accessibility ramps, biomechanics, obesity, and disabilities. Non-scientific literature was also explored (e.g. building codes). The fifty-eight articles selected were grouped under five themes: 1) ramps and users; 2) materials and climate; 3) visual reference; 4) "wayfinding"; 5) durability, aesthetics and culture. Recommendations encouraging interdisciplinary practice, pegged to inclusive design, are exhibited (e.g. tracking, tilt, contrast).

This paper presents the results of a study examining the social and physical walkability of a commercial mall that acts as an accessible space where people congregate, and where positive and negati...

We present an on-going multidisciplinary and multisectorial strategic development project put forth by the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Rehabilitation of greater Montreal (CRIR) in Quebec, Canada and its members, in collaboration with a Montreal “renovation-ready” shopping mall, local community organizations, and local, national and international research and industrial partners. Beginning in 2011, within the context of the Mall as Living Lab (MALL), more than 45 projects were initiated to: (1) identify the environmental, physical and social obstacles and facilitators to participation; (2) develop technology and interventions to optimize physical and cognitive function participation and inclusion; (3) implement and evaluate the impact of technology and interventions in vivo. Two years later and working within a participatory action research (PAR) approach, and the overarching WHO framework of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF), we discuss challenges and future endeavors. Challenges include creating and maintaining partnerships, ensuring a PAR approach to engage multiple stakeholders (e.g. people with disabilities, rehabilitation and design researchers, health professionals, community members and shopping mall stakeholders) and assessing the overall impact of the living lab. Future endeavors, including the linking between research results and recommendations for renovations to the mall, are also presented.

Persons with disabilities face challenges which impact on their ability to accomplish daily activities such as moving around, communicating and fulfilling social roles. Social participation assumes individuals with disabilities live within their community and interact with others. Shopping malls are public spaces used by individuals for various reasons. Here, all components of the social and physical environment interact and have an impact on social participation. This exploratory and qualitative study provides a multi-perspective assessment of the usability, as well as of the environmental facilitators and obstacles to social participation in shopping malls. The results also suggest necessary improvements. We interviewed 15 persons with disabilities, 15 rehabilitation professionals and 9 shopkeepers. Participants viewed the mall as a multifunctional place for everyday use, but at times, also as a limiting place. Multiple facilitators and obstacles were identified; the most important were interaction with shopkeepers and the mall's design for mobility or wayfinding. All participants agreed shopkeeper training and an improved awareness of the needs of persons with disabilities would be beneficial. Multiple stakeholders’ perceptions provide a basis for further investigation about needed changes and their potential for making malls more welcoming and inclusive to all.

Adapting public spaces for persons with disabilities can be both physically and socially challenging. The two pilot studies presented explore the existing physical conditions of the mall and the social experiences of the mall users as these are documented and experienced by them. The research goals include understanding the physical characteristics of the mall, how access happens, what people experience in real time when going to the mall and what this might mean in terms of issues of social construction of space and personal lived experiences. In both pilot studies, the methods included visual documentation and content analysis of the existing spaces and their design, followed by live in-mall walk-abouts with participants, during which narratives of the experiences were recorded. Researchers engaged collaboratively with participants to understand the experiences, challenges and situations they experienced. Participants include persons with reduced vision or severe vision loss and persons in motorized wheelchairs. Results reveal issues of lack of accessibility, poor contrast and issues of way-finding. Social stigmas add to mall experiences and participants nevertheless reveal the value of the social experiences despite the mall elements hampering their access.

Introduction L’evaluation en milieu reel ou ecologique momentanee (EMEM) permet d’obtenir des informations uniques et differentes de l’evaluation traditionnelle en milieu clinique ou en laboratoire. Les musees sont des environnements riches pour la comprehension du comportement humain. Leurs vastes espaces requierent de bonnes capacites de mobilite et de navigation pour une participation experientielle optimale. Notre projet vise a caracteriser la mobilite dans un environnement ecologique, le musee des Beaux-Arts de Montreal (MBAM), en mettant en commun des donnees multiples sur la posture, l’equilibre et la locomotion et les facteurs qui les influencent, comme la cognition. Materiel et methode Ce projet consiste a explorer la faisabilite de collecter des donnees issues de plusieurs sous-projets de recherche, lors d’une journee de visite reguliere du MBAM. Cent soixante-neuf membres VIP du musee seront recrutes. Ils seront aleatoirement attribues a un des sous-projets tenus simultanement. Des mesures de faisabilite seront recoltees a l’aide d’observations, de questionnaires et d’entrevues semi-structurees aupres des chercheurs, participants et employes du musee. L’agregation de ces donnees multiples et leur analyse permettra de juger de la faisabilite du projet et la validite des donnees des sous-projets. Resultats attendus/Discussion Les resultats immediats de l’etude devraient fournir des recommandations specifiques conduisant a des modifications du protocole de sorte a pouvoir plus facilement tenir ce type de collectes a l’avenir. Les produits livrables a court et moyen termes comprendront des solutions concretes benefiques pour les autres jours de collectes, les autres groupes de visiteurs evalues (ex. visiteurs post-accident neurologique) et rendront a terme le MBAM et d’autres sites similaires des environnements de collectes de donnees de type EMEM concevables.

The last 50 years has seen moves towards establishing a sound epistemic basis for design as a knowledge discipline. Despite this, there is still a lack of clarity and penetration of such epistemic studies into pedagogy and practice, as well as little consensus of a foundational structure to the territory of specialized knowledge and knowledge acquisition. This raises the issue that there remains several epistemological ‘big challenges’ across the entire spectrum of design disciplines – or as a generalized design knowledge (Cross, 2013). This theme will explore the current state of design epistemology and pose a range of questions that remain generally unanswered, or incompletely answered. Such questions have to consider the historical underpinnings of design as discipline, leading to the social and political drivers and contexts within which it operates today. At the same time, these questions have to consider the grounded and heuristic nature of design; a fundamentally situated practice whose artifacts still remain under-researched across the discipline. In general terms, a design epistemology as a truly distinct and rigorous knowledge praxis has yet to emerge. At this 50th Design Research Society conference, the Design Epistemology Theme seeks to encourage new discussions across the community to rigorously consider the scope, methods and veracity of design practice, education and research.

Looking forward, we argue that the need for research and scholarship in interior design has never been greater, given the difficult economic pressures being felt around the world and facing those in academia, practice, and industry. Research allows us to define with great precision why design adds such indelible value to the world in which we live by enhancing knowledge about the design of interiors including workplace and learning environments, public places and leisure spaces, as well as in those for healing. Turbulent times often make way for innovation. We see this theme emerging in the recent exhibition, Bauhaus 1919–1933: Workshops for Modernity, at the Museum of Modern Art, which is instructive from a historic perspective (Bergdoll & Dickerman, 2009).

Interior environments and their design are profoundly influenced by how designers integrate color and light with form and space. In our increasingly global world, new lighting technologies are changing our perception of color and light and subsequently our interrelationships with one another and with interior space. This alters the choices that we have as designers when we make both color and light decisions. Traditional light and color theories are being challenged with new lighting approaches that are complex, dynamic, and that are changing people's immediate experiences within spaces. Currently, new light technologies alter our perceptual relationships with people and forms, as light, its spectral color, and the forms its affects are more interactive and modulated in real time. Usually, in interior design coursework, students learn about color and light as static theories that they are then asked to apply within the interior design of spaces in subsequent design studios. Through a presentation and examination of the course “Color and Light in Interior Design,” this paper proposes considering integrating color and light theories with new contexts of dynamic, integrated human experiences of color and light in interior space. Students acquire learning experiences that integrate theory and practice by understanding the complex interrelationships of light, color, and objects in interior spaces as interactive, and by exploring design concepts in actual environments as a laboratory where they can test theories and their own ideas. The course structure is described and the theories underlying the course goals are explored. Color and light theories are considered in the context of emerging technologies and how phenomenological approaches affect our perceptions and experiences in spaces. Student examples of two of the four course projects are presented as these put theories into practice. The discussion shows that light and color theory, when explored in this way, stimulates both comprehensive and creative responses that integrate new technology with aesthetic theory and functional aspects of well–designed light/color solutions. The integrating of practice into theory stimulates reflective thinking and an understanding of situated contexts in interior design problem solving. The course develops emerging necessities of understanding dynamic color/light concepts that contribute to broadening interior design applied knowledge.

(2008). Dwelling Futures and Lived Experiences: Transforming Interior Spaces. Design Philosophy Papers: Vol. 6, No. 2, pp. 141-155.

Tiiu Poldma is Vice Dean of Graduate Studies and Research in the Faculty of Environmental Design, and associate professor at the School of Industrial Design at the University of Montreal. Tiiu Poldma received a BID at Ryerson in 1982 (Toronto), MA in Culture and Values in Education in 1999 and Doctor of Philosophy in 2003, both from McGill University in Montreal, Canada. She teaches interior design studio and theory within the Bachelor of Interior Design program at the University of Montreal, and advanced research methodologies in the Masters of Science and Ph.D. programs at the Faculty of Environmental Design. She is currently the Director of the Research Group GRID(Group for Research in Illumination and Design) and heads up the Colour, Light and Form Lab (Laboratoire Forme*couleur*lumiere) at the faculty. She accredits design programs as a site evaluator for CIDAboth in Canada and the United States, and is also a member of the Editorial Board of Inderscience where she is the Regional Editor of the Journal of Design Research (JDR), and serves on the Editorial Board of Design/Science/Planning (Techne Press, Amsterdam).