Susan Melsop

Susan Melsop

Susan Melsop

Associate Professor | Interior Design Coordinator

melsop.3@osu.edu

125A Hayes Hall
108 North Oval Mall
Columbus OHIO 43210

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Areas of Expertise

  • Interior Design
  • Integration of Human-Centered Design
  • Technology and the Environment
  • Design Technology
  • Phenomenology of Building and Design Traditions of East Asia
  • Hermeneutics of Sacred Space

Education

  • Master of Architecture, University of Illinois Chicago
  • Bachelor of Architecture, The Ohio State University

Susan Melsop is an Associate Professor in the Department of Design, the Major Area Coordinator for the BSD in Interior Design, and Co-Director of the DESIS Lab at The Ohio State University. 

Professor Melsop has been on the faculty in the Department of Design since 2008. Prior to this appointment, she taught design studios and graduate seminars on sacred space at the Knowlton School of Architecture at The Ohio State Univieristy. This past year she was a Visiting Professor at the University of Colorado in Denver. She holds a Master of Architecture from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and a Bachelor of Architecture from The Ohio State University.

Though her formal training is in architecture, Susan’s work mediates between the scale of building, installations, furniture, and sculpture. Her research focuses on community engaged design-build, sustainable building practices, design pedagogy and reflective practices. Early and influential interests include East Asian philosophy, Buddhism, and the hermeneutics of sacred space.

Susan is recipient of numerous awards and fellowships including the Ronald and Deborah Ratner Award for Teaching Innovation, a Global Arts and Humanities DT Faculty Fellowship, a Faculty Award for Excellence in Community-Based Scholarship, an Outreach Award from the College of Arts and Sciences, and a Community-Based Award from Central Community House (a non-profit in the Old Town East neighborhood).

Susan is the creator of Design Matters, a local and international service-learning course that brings diverse communities together to co-design and build beneficial elements for community use. On the eastside, Design Matters brings urban youth from the Transit Arts program together with Ohio State students to co-design and build small scale structures and furniture for a community art center. In São Paulo, Brazil OSU students work directly with an underserved population, the “PopRua” and SP students in co-design processes for urban revitalization and social justice.

 

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