Two classes join to create a model suite for students with disabilities

Junior Jon Larocca, left, describes for Tina Champion, a former peer counselor for the Finger Lakes Independence Center, how the "lobby island" fits into the scale model of the student-devised residence hall suite, during a presentation of the full-scale models in Martha Van Rensselaer Hall, Dec. 6. Charles Harrington/University Photography

By Susan Lang

To experience the real-life challenges involved in designing for clients, interior design students in two Cornell College of Human Ecology classes collaborated this past semester to design and build a residence hall suite for students with sensory or motor disabilities. The suite includes full-scale models of a bathroom, a sleeping space, an entranceway and a lounge area, each created by an individual student team.

The design project involved collaborations between two design and environmental analysis classes: Associate Professor Paul Eshelman's Intermediate Interior Design and Professor Gary Evans' Environmental and Social Behavior. The students in Evans' class researched the social, behavioral and psychological needs of students with disabilities and developed design guidelines, from which Eshelman's design students created models for the residence.

The "social science" students had to research the needs of people with disabilities and how they would interact with the proposed space.

"We had to determine what supportive qualities the space had to ensure and practical ways to implement them. This came from interviewing members of the community, interviewing Cornellians, drawing on the teams' needs for dorm life and synthesizing this information with material we collected from lectures and research," explained Daria Mallin, a senior from Troy, N.Y., who is double majoring in facilities planning and management and in ergonomics.

The students also developed a system of design guidelines and ratings based on research, inventiveness and practicality, Mallin explained. Then, the guidelines were compiled into a book and given to the design students. Thereafter, the social scientists consulted with the designers and helped them build their modules.

"The most valuable part of this project was learning how important it is to thoroughly evaluate the needs of all people that will use a space," said Rachel Stecker, a junior from Buffalo and a double major in facilities planning and human factors, who also helped develop the design guidelines. "Much of the feedback we received and information we found was contradictory and it was important for us to learn how to find a middle ground and still satisfy all users' needs."

The student teams also collaborated with Larry Roberts, program director of the Finger Lakes Independence Center, a local nonprofit agency that seeks to help break down attitudinal, architectural and programmatic barriers that inhibit individuals with disabilities.

In recent years, the interior design class workshops have developed indoor mini playgrounds for child-care programs housed in senior citizen centers, residential spaces for persons with Alzheimer's disease living with their spouses and shared-use spaces for people with dementia residing in assisted-living facilities.

Funding for the collaborative studio this past fall came in the form of a faculty-in-residence grant through Campus Life -- Community Development Administration at Cornell.