Designing for the Visually Impaired from a Distance
Even though NYSID had to adopt a fully online instruction model this summer, the College’s service learning studio was more popular and productive than ever. In the first installment of our two-part series on the 2020 program, we look at the designs produced for patients and doctors at SUNY College of Optometry by students in the professional-level Master of Fine Arts in Interior Design program (MFA1) .
People don’t usually associate interior design with community service. Yet if you look at the missions of ASID or IIDA, pro bono service to the community is part of the interior designer’s professional code. NYSID’s academic leaders have long understood that when designers give back, they reap incredible experience and exemplify the important ways in which good interior design can improve people’s lives.
Since 2015, NYSID has offered MFA1 students the opportunity to participate in a service learning studio to fulfill the College’s summer experiential learning requirement. This year, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, there were fewer summer internships or travel-study opportunities, so there was a greater demand for the service learning studio, which the Office of Academic Affairs offered as an online course. Terry Kleinberg, the faculty member who leads service learning, learned from a friend that the public teaching hospital SUNY College of Optometry needed a total rethink of its 15,000 SF University Eye Center, a facility where doctors treat the visually impaired. She visited the facility in February and seized on the opportunity to develop a new section of the class. Not only was NYSID able to meet the increased demand for service learning with two sections, but this new partnership was a boon to the clients and the students. Says Kleinberg, “The experience of interacting with end users, working with real budgets, and designing collaboratively empowers my students. So many former students have told me that when they went on job interviews and presented their portfolio, this service project was the one employers wanted to talk about the most.”
“Knowing that this project could go live was a big thing for me. It made me more determined to double-check whatever ideas I put forth.”
Invaluable Experience in Universal Design
Jacqueline Feng, Kimberly Friedman, Alina Hackett, Allyson Hughes, Rebecca Lipschitz, Jingxian Liu, Mallory Max, Sonalika Nair, and Chazzten Pettiford were the students who worked on the design for the University Eye Center. The floor they were tasked with redesigning was, according to Kleinberg, “a full city block wide.” Their end users were people with low vision and/or head traumas that impacted sight, visual therapy patients, attending physicians, and residents.
People with low vision tend to be elderly, and people with head trauma can’t endure noise and intense visual stimulation. Conversely, visual therapy patients are often children, who tend to be loud and bustling. In only eight weeks, this design team had to meet the conflicting needs of these users. The students met with each other and the clients virtually, with the exception of three students who went to the facility to take measurements and photos for the whole team. After weeks of research on these populations and interactive virtual presentations with their clients, they came up with a floor plan that separated the waiting room for the low vision and head trauma patients, which had to be soothing and quiet, from the waiting room for the visual therapy clients, which needed to be cheerful and large, and include a play nook. They also consolidated everything the low vision/head trauma patients needed, such as bathrooms and exam rooms, in the proximity of the waiting area, so that people with less mobility would not have to walk the long length of the building. Wayfinding, lighting, border contrast, and the selection of non-glaring surfaces were important because they help people with low vision navigate space.
Kleinberg notes, “There is a whole spectrum in between sightedness and sightlessness. Understanding the needs of people with limited sight is an important part of Universal Design and the most important takeaway from this class. Think of how many aging people have limited sight and how broadly applicable this information can be.”
Top Row: Sonalika Nair, Terry Kleinberg, Jacqueline Feng; 2nd Row: Alina Hackett, Kimberly Friedman, Rebecca Lipschitz; 3rd Row: Mallory Max, Chazzten Pettiford, Allison Hughes; Bottom Row: Jingxian Liu
Brilliant Solutions
There were so many facets to the student’s plan that impressed Kleinberg, but she says the big idea was a “central spine” that connected the faculty workspaces to exam rooms. She explains, “The attending physician has to pop in and out of exam rooms to supervise the residents and interns who are working with patients, so the students came up with two faculty collaboration spaces linked by a faculty-only hallway, which they called ‘the central spine.’ It gives the attendings backdoor access to most of the exam rooms and private space for collaboration, and the students even came up with a lighting system to show when the doctor was needed. The clients loved this idea.”
Collaboration Space for Head Trauma and Low Vision Faculty (View 01)
Collaboration Space for Head Trauma and Low Vision Faculty (View 02)
Collaboration Space for Vision Therapy Faculty (View 01)
Collaboration Space for Vision Therapy Faculty (View 02)
Lighting Feature for Exam Room Doors in the Faculty Spine Area
Within the reception area, the students turned a problem into an opportunity. As it exists now, there’s a big mechanical space covered by a blank wall in front of the elevator, and that’s the first thing a user experiences when they step into the space. Says Kleinberg, “A student came up with the idea of taking the institutional logo and using it as a lighting element throughout the entire space. Creating illuminated signage with the logo, they turned that wall into a focal point and a branding opportunity. The client was excited because they thought the wall could be used as a naming opportunity for a donor.” Three Master of Professional Studies in Lighting Design (MPSL) students—Badar Munir, Korapin Srisom, and Jung Yoon—volunteered their time to advise on this lighting detail and others.
Reception Area (View 01)
Reception Area (View 02)
Real Clients Mean Real Results
The final presentation was attended by SUNY College of Optometry’s top doctors and administrators including Dr. David Heath, the president of SUNY College of Optometry.
Liduvina Martinez-Gonzalez, SUNY College of Optometry’s vice president for clinical administration and executive director, told the student design team, “You did what a client wants: You listened to us. You did a phenomenal job.” SUNY will use the designs to seek out funding for the build.
Sonalika Nair reflects,“I think the most important factor for any real-life project is the input the designer gets from the clients: Their needs and preferences build the basis of the project. This input is what we don't get in an ordinary classroom, where we're given a real site, but we build our own imaginary client profile. I really appreciated that our clients were very vocal and very clear about what their requirements were.”
Look out for our next installment on the 2020 service learning studio’s work for Safe Horizon, an organization that helps victims of violence find safety and opportunity.