Students design, build a model residence for students with disabilities

By Susan Lang

Two Cornell interior design classes don't just build scale models, they build the real thing. The undergraduates in the classes planned, designed and built a full-scale model of a residence hall suite, including a bathroom, a sleeping space, an entranceway and a lounge area, for students with sensory or motor disabilities.

From left, design and environmental analysis seniors Jungmin Lee and Miriam Lee record comments Dec. 12 by Larry Roberts, program director of the Finger Lakes Independence Center, on the living unit students designed and built in Martha Van Rensselaer Hall. Charles Harrington/University Photography

"We assign this type of project each year to give our students a realistic experience of a professional interior designer," said Paul Eshelman, associate professor of design and environmental analysis in the College of Human Ecology.

To get a taste of how designers collaborate with other professionals in their design process, the students in his course, Intermediate Interior Design, collaborate with the students in Professor Gary Evans' Environmental and Social Behavior course.

The students in Evans' class researched the social, behavioral and psychological needs of students with disabilities and how they would interact with the proposed space. They interviewed members of the community, such as Larry Roberts, director of the Finger Lakes Independence Center, and Cornellians, including staff from Campus Life, who served as the "clients." Integrating this material with what they learned from their own experiences with residence hall life, lectures and research, they developed a book of design guidelines. The design students then used these guidelines as they designed and built the modules.

"Throughout the process, the students explore the concept of 'universal design' in a residence hall. The project is a useful statement to the Cornell community about the issue of diversity and helps to inform students about the differences the built environment can make in their lives," explained Eshelman.

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 an award for academic innovation given by the Cornell Class of 1972.