On November 7th, 2^nd year interior design students from the University of Kentucky joined the 3^rd year interior design students from The Ohio State University’s Department of Design for events in conjunction with the national EDspaces Conference that took place that week in Columbus. 

Associate professor Rebekah Matheny hosted the event which began as a tour of campus spaces that had been designed by former students in the Higher Ed Learning Spaces Interior Design Studio. Though it was a rainy day, all 46 students enjoyed seeing the spaces and learning about what fosters belonging on campus. The UK students, led by their Professor Patrick Lucas, departed for a tour of the Wexner Museum and lunch before rejoining the OSU students for a design workshop in the afternoon at the Student Entrepreneurs’ Center. The workshop utilized co-design tools from Rebekah’s research to explore what interior elements foster wellbeing and belonging from the student perspective. The students also shared their current studio design projects, discussing the different approach to learning spaces for K-12 that the UK students are working on versus High Ed spaces that the OSU students are doing.

Earlier in the week, Rebekah also presented at the annual EDspaces Conference. Joined by Royce Epstein, Senior Director of Design Insights for Mohawk Group, Rebekah and Royce presented “Co-Designing Fractal Experiences Through Research and Practice”. Their presentation presented the co-design design research that Rebekah and her student team conducted on behalf of the Keenan Center which led to the design for the Student Entrepreneurs’ Center. The design leveraged the science behind fractals, as presented by Royce, and the fractal patterns from Mohawk’s carpet.