The ASID Foundation announced the recipients of Transform, the 2nd-annual research grant program which focuses on applied research in interior design and human behavior. The Foundation supports endeavors that capture and disseminate knowledge, encourage innovation, and benefit the health, safety and welfare of the public through interior design research, scholarships and education.
Other ASID Foundation initiatives include CIDA’s Accreditation Process Review; REGREEN, a collaborative project with the U.S. Green Building Council; and Rebuilding Together and their Veteran’s Housing Initiative.
This year’s grants total $115,000 and honored the following three projects:
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.
Angela Bourne of Texas Tech University developed a prototype for therapeutic living and enrichment environments for aging adults with intellectual developmental disabilities and autism spectrum disorder. 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.
The Center for Health Design developed 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,” said 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.”
