Evidence based design - or the process of basing decisions about the built environment on credible research to achieve the best possible outcomes - has taken deep roots in the healthcare design industry over the last 10 years. Inherent in this process, is a focus on conducting research to evaluate the impact of design decisions. This poses some challenges as often design professionals are not trained as researchers. Healthcare practitioners, on the other hand, while often trained to interpret and conduct research, are unfamiliar with design research. In this session we will discuss:

-The use of the EBD process as a research and communication tool in the healthcare design process
-Some of the challenges and opportunities associated with conducting design research in healthcare settings

As designers, we learn from the people around us: our clients, colleagues, teachers, neighbors, families and friends. At the Rural Studio, we seek to use local resources efficiently to fill needs we have uncovered through these social relationships in rural west Alabama. In this workshop, we will work in groups as “citizen architects” to find resource-efficient solutions to challenges at the Exposed 2010 conference, using similar hands-on design tools to those we use at the Rural Studio.

Have a great design idea or practice that you are interested in bringing to market? This workshop will lead you through business and customer considerations that help turn design research into a viable enterprise. Learn about specific marketing techniques that apply to sustainable and environmentally responsible design firms and practices.

There will also be interactive team work to apply your new business and marketing skills in different sustainable design scenarios and bringing them to market. Your team will receive peer and workshop leader feedback. If you have a design idea that you would like to explore the business potential for - this it the workshop for you!

This practicum allows small groups to consider research approaches to understand how behaviors in the office and related work-domains influence ecological impacts. Various office activities have different environmental implications; a range of potential alternative behaviors may reduce these ecological impacts. A crucial component of successful adoption of new behaviors and technologies is a clear understanding of behaviors in the office and perceptions about alternative ways of working and alternative technical solutions.

After a sampling of ecologically significant office activities will be analyzed for their ecological impacts, a template of research approaches will be described. Small groups will be guided through the process of mapping the ecological impacts of discrete workspace services, and supported through steps to plan the most effective sequence of research methods to understand user perceptions about the office activities.

Approaches to structure the research process that are explored in this workshop can be applied to other ecologically significant activities after the workshop.

The healthcare design industry has come a long way in terms of what is understood about the impact of the built environment on global health and safety. There is research that links the built environment to outcome metrics. As a matter of fact, there are a growing number of rigorous scientific studies that support using an evidence-based design (EBD) process. Our breakout will look at the trends leading to a greater focus on EBD and how to use that knowledge in building a business case for better healthcare facilities.

This workshop will examine our current material, governmental, and corporate systems, to propose how they might be reconfigured to help create a truly Sustainable Society. If not corrected, these systems are on a course to eventually deplete available natural resources and/or catastrophically damage the environment.

We will also discuss how the design professions can become positive contributors in this arena. Clearly such systems need reconsidered, and who better than designers to lead that effort? This undertaking may be hopelessly naive due to its enormity, but it's important that we begin the conversation while there's still time to affect significant change.

Designers excel at seeing the “big picture,” a necessary first step in identifying problems. Let’s use these talents to help create a sustainable world for future generations.

Design researchers are polyglots. We must think and work across multiple stakeholder languages. This lively workshop will encourage discussion about the role of the design researcher as interpreter and facilitator and engage participants in various activities that illustrate our own efforts to bridge this gap.

This workshop discusses the process of design research at a community level highlighting the importance of community participation, developing trust, identifying stakeholders and building partnerships. In this hand-on workshop, through a series of activities, participants will learn to apply the ‘flip’ method and evaluate design concepts that take into account the individuals, community and the city.

One of the major challenges of design research at a community level is the transformation of research insights into design solutions that are innovative and relevant to the community members. This workshop presents a method developed by Studio 1 to 1 that ensures a rich transformation of insights into innovative and socially relevant design solutions.

Description Forthcoming

Our journey at SLAM Collaborative began more than 20 years ago with a vision – comprised of institutional commitment and thoughtful design, healthcare facilities could put patients before process, people before technology, and healing before “interventions.” Inspired by the Planetree™ philosophy of care and working closely with the progressive leadership of Griffin Hospital, healthcare architects at The S/L/A/M Collaborative eagerly embraced the challenge of creating what is now recognized as a prototype - one of the first acute-care community hospitals in the country to implement the environmental and organizational cultural changes that promote holistic healing and patient/ family involvement in medical care. It is our belief that “Planetree” is at the origins of today’s healthcare industry embracing the process of evidence based design - basing decisions about the environment on credible research to achieve the best possible outcomes.

The Griffin Hospital has been recognized as the ‘Model” patient-centered environment with acknowledgements and awards from Healthcare Facilities Design, Modern Healthcare, and the American Institute of Architects, The Center for Health Design, American Society of Healthcare Engineers, the Boston Society of Architects and the New England Healthcare Assembly. For more than two decades, SLAM has been privileged to partner with Griffin Hospital on a number of projects and other major Planetree™ institutions across the country. Most recently, Griffin Hospital and SLAM have been awarded First Place in the Healthcare Environments Awards 2009, sponsored by the Center for Health Design and Contract Magazine, for the Griffin Cancer Care Center.

Our healthcare practice is founded on principles that embrace creating patient centered care and how this philosophy helps to define the built environments we create. Our workshop will share SLAM’s process and tools we utilized along our journey - sharing our history with the development of the “Planetree” philosophy; how we incorporate these tools into our process of what we do; how it makes a difference, how our clients benefit and what the “real” world benefits to the community/patients - how a holistic healing community became a reality.

Now that "Design Thinking" is being adopted by business, healthcare, and the social sector, we've had to begin asking ourselves a rather odd question, "what does it mean to be a designer doing Design Thinking?"

In this workshop we will present some tools, skills, and approaches that designers as individuals can use to thrive in this whole "design thinking" thing.

Put on your philosopher’s cap and bring along anything you learned on the streets. In this workshop we’ll investigate whether everything we are trying to accomplish through design can be boiled down to a single word: “happiness.”

If so, are we pre-wired as human beings to find happiness through inanimate objects? Or are there perhaps some common threads between the products and services we love or hate, and the qualities we look for in our relationships with people?

Are desirable products physically attractive, or even cute? Do we relate more closely to musical instruments or styles, such as a cello or a blues guitar, that sound a bit human? Why are we fascinated by life-like tactile objects like memory-foam pillows that feel a little too much like another person? Are we most attracted to products that touch us back?

In this exploratory workshop participants will work together closely. It wouldn’t be right to discuss happiness in isolation. While some of you will be making each other completely happy, get ready – ‘cause others will be learning how to make each other completely miserable.

As designers, you often think of designing new products and artifacts. However in high performance environments such as clinical environments, artifacts need to be supported by multiple concepts to form complete interventions. In this talk, I will present a framework for introducing new artifacts and process change in clinical environments. Attendees will be exposed to 2 case studies on introducing process change in clinical environments and ensuring rapid and safe deployment of new products in clinical workflow.

Choosing the right tools to capture participant feedback can be as complex as the contexts you are exploring. Doing this in a way which maximizes user engagement can be even tougher. This workshop shall explore two distinct areas: using Google tools and user empowerment in studies. While looking at various techniques for use and integration of Google tools we will explore how you can enhance participatory design activities while making it easier for you as a researcher to explore, respond and engage with issues on the fly.

In this highly interactive session, participants will learn from a recent case study that applied Experiential Prototyping to simulate the experience of specific physical disabilities. Next, small groups will experiment with Experiential Prototyping tools, and discuss potential applications and pitfalls of this rapid, effective approach to inspiring empathy in project stakeholders.

In this workshop, you will be exposed to the different ways to look at product usability, aesthetics and a high level view of how creative people work with customers such as the military. We will also touch on how diverse backgrounds make the best teams to approach tough usability issues. With anecdotal lecture, we will walk through various stages of a human-centered design project. Using interactive group exercises, Usability:Survivability is going to give you a number of approaches to working with users that deal with stressful and hostile environments. You will walk away with a different perspective on user input and proven techniques of working with users that can improve and validate your design.