Teaching Philosophy
The overarching intent of my pedagogical approach is to inspire students to become engaged advocates in pursuit of impactful design solutions that address the challenges of an ever-changing world. Through my tutelage and mentorship, I aim to instill in students the skills to become thought leaders who synthesize all aspects of design and who strive to create innovative solutions that speak to the human condition and planetary needs. It is my personal ideology that we have a profound opportunity as educators and designers to effect change and quite literally build our way to a better future.
I see design through the lens of collaboration with an aspiration for excellence where the built environment is a vehicle for global good. My identity as a researcher and professional designer is fluid with my role as an educator. This is most notable in the inclusion of my work which poses real-world design challenges to students in the studio courses I instruct and, in my research, where students are empowered as equal stakeholders. I believe students enthusiastically rise to meet the challenges of real-world design problems in a very sincere way and invest themselves in creating viable outcomes because they truly desire to make meaningful contributions. This is evidenced in the continued participation of students, now alumni, who work closely with me to realize Hope for Honduras advocacy projects like the addition to Hospital Escuela’s NICU that will save an estimated 600 infants a year, or the Skin-to-Skin garments that may revolutionize self-incubation results for premature newborns in low resource communities and the neonatal transport ambulance, the first of its kind, now in prototype production for in-service later this year.
Designers are tasked with considering the human being in relationship to the spatial world and their interaction with objects to perform functional tasks be it at work, rest, or play. By investigating everyday experiences from the tactile and experiential point of view of the user I believe my students will inherently invent new strategies to define environments and experiences that not only perform ideally but are poetic in their beauty. Each time we begin the ideation process I believe it is imperative that we ask ourselves are we living well? Could we be living better? This modality of thinking does not suggest that more is better but purports that by designing for a diversity of experiences we will inherently cultivate inclusiveness and timelessness in every design, every time.
I aspire to challenge students to explore design through a full range of ideologies to develop a deep-rooted sense of their personal passions. I encourage the study of a wide range of approaches to problem solving and engage students in a process of discovering what truly inspires them. We work closely together, yet towards self-reliance, to develop personal design vocabularies and value systems so that they may confidently address design problems from their unique point of view. I believe that when students have confidence in their innate sensibilities, they are free to expound upon ideas and attain great proficiency while realizing their visions. What I find most exciting about guiding students through this process is that they fully immerse themselves in explorations and the result is an intimate expression of their lens of the world rather than repetition of an ideology or methodology.
It is through this process of self-discovery and developing a keen sense of social responsibility that I believe we will bring into being a culture of young professionals able to create meaningful contributions not just for the sake of aesthetics or design progress but for the betterment of society as a whole.
I see design through the lens of collaboration with an aspiration for excellence where the built environment is a vehicle for global good. My identity as a researcher and professional designer is fluid with my role as an educator. This is most notable in the inclusion of my work which poses real-world design challenges to students in the studio courses I instruct and, in my research, where students are empowered as equal stakeholders. I believe students enthusiastically rise to meet the challenges of real-world design problems in a very sincere way and invest themselves in creating viable outcomes because they truly desire to make meaningful contributions. This is evidenced in the continued participation of students, now alumni, who work closely with me to realize Hope for Honduras advocacy projects like the addition to Hospital Escuela’s NICU that will save an estimated 600 infants a year, or the Skin-to-Skin garments that may revolutionize self-incubation results for premature newborns in low resource communities and the neonatal transport ambulance, the first of its kind, now in prototype production for in-service later this year.
Designers are tasked with considering the human being in relationship to the spatial world and their interaction with objects to perform functional tasks be it at work, rest, or play. By investigating everyday experiences from the tactile and experiential point of view of the user I believe my students will inherently invent new strategies to define environments and experiences that not only perform ideally but are poetic in their beauty. Each time we begin the ideation process I believe it is imperative that we ask ourselves are we living well? Could we be living better? This modality of thinking does not suggest that more is better but purports that by designing for a diversity of experiences we will inherently cultivate inclusiveness and timelessness in every design, every time.
I aspire to challenge students to explore design through a full range of ideologies to develop a deep-rooted sense of their personal passions. I encourage the study of a wide range of approaches to problem solving and engage students in a process of discovering what truly inspires them. We work closely together, yet towards self-reliance, to develop personal design vocabularies and value systems so that they may confidently address design problems from their unique point of view. I believe that when students have confidence in their innate sensibilities, they are free to expound upon ideas and attain great proficiency while realizing their visions. What I find most exciting about guiding students through this process is that they fully immerse themselves in explorations and the result is an intimate expression of their lens of the world rather than repetition of an ideology or methodology.
It is through this process of self-discovery and developing a keen sense of social responsibility that I believe we will bring into being a culture of young professionals able to create meaningful contributions not just for the sake of aesthetics or design progress but for the betterment of society as a whole.