The Institute for Human Centered Design (IHCD) is thrilled to extend a warm invitation to our Boston Design Week Inclusive Design Open House, coinciding with SoWA First Friday. We will use the opportunity to kick off IHCD Learning, our expanded educational commitment, "Designing Inclusively, Educating Globally."
Throughout the day, we will offer both live and virtual presentations. See a global map highlighting guests for upcoming webcasts, podcast and interviews. We will showcase some of our favorite new books in the field. Peruse our library. And take a look at some of our current projects.
See our fully accessible Media Studio for live presentations that day and where IHCD Learning's live, virtual and hybrid programs will be hosted.
Come and share in our multi-disciplinary design expertise that spans sectors from urban design, culture, higher education, outdoor recreation, public transit, corporations, and public sector clients.
Scheduled Programming
11:00 a.m. | All Are Welcome
Enjoy refreshments, informative displays, and engaging discussions with our staff and supporters during the event. Our office is fully accessible, and real-time captioning will be provided for all presentations. Each presentation offers 1 AIA CES credit.
11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. | Telling Stories of Yesterday and Today While Designing for the Future: Inclusive Design in Museums
Presented by: Ana Julian, IHCD Senior Project Manager, and Jan Majewski, IHCD Director of Inclusive Cultural Projects.
This session will advocate for the holistic approach of Inclusive Design when creating and restoring museum buildings, designing exhibitions, developing programs, and providing communication digitally, in print, and through human facilitators. Inclusive Design serves museums today and impacts the quality of experience for the future.
1:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m. | Beyond Illumination, Connected LED Lighting for Diverse Community Needs
Presented by: Wilhelmina (Wila) Crolius, Senior Customer Experience Designer at Signify
Learn how smart city technology, deployed through connected LED lighting, can create new revenue streams, increase public safety, reduce carbon emissions, and improve infrastructure resilience after natural disasters for diverse populations. Through case studies, you will learn what cities in North America and abroad are doing with connected LED lighting to activate their lighting infrastructure, enabling us to build cities for an uncertain future.
2:30 p.m. - 3:30 p.m. | Architectures of Transition: Emerging Practices in South Asia
Presented by: Devashree Shah, IHCD Coordinator of Inclusive Public Transit and Architect, and Pranav Thole, Architect and Urban Designer
The authors will present findings of their book, 'Architectures of Transition: Emergent Practices in South Asia' recently published with Rahul Mahrota. The book aims to capture the current pulse of the region by exploring emerging architectural practices across seven countries: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Cataloging 41 practices, it showcases a commitment to public architecture, empathetic approaches, and innovative solutions for affordable housing and urban infrastructure.
Looping Video | The Rise and Fall of the Toilet Room
Presented by: Meghan Dufresne, LEED AP and IHCD Architectural Project Manager and Designer
The last private space within the public realm, toilet rooms have a history fraught with conflict. It has become commonplace that these areas necessary for biological functions are relegated to obscurity, even within first world countries. Looking through developments in the United States and Japan, the presentation will illustrate issues of concern with the design of toilet rooms and reveal design trends that can be looked to as precedents for providing spaces that allow for dignity, equity and social inclusion, and contribute to the health and vitality of cities.
5:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. | Champagne Toast
Presented by: Valerie Fletcher, IHCD Executive Director
We'll wrap up the day with a champagne toast as we celebrate IHCD Learning, our expanded education mission of "Designing Inclusively, Educating Globally" with our first donors, Anne, David and Jon Meyers.
About The Speakers
Ana Julian is IHCD’s Senior Project Managers and has served IHCD in a mix of capacities beginning in 1998. She provided technical assistance for IHCD’s New England ADA Center and its national Fair Housing Design and Construction Resource Center (DCRC). As a certified ICC Accessibility/Inspector plan examiner, she also provides guidance under the International Building Code (IBC) and distinctive state codes. She was a Governor-appointed member of the Massachusetts Architectural Access Board. She has extensive experience including existing condition reviews for accessibility in higher education, municipalities, public agencies, healthcare, and the cultural sector.
Ana was born in Colombia then moved to Paris as an adolescent, she earned a Masters of Architecture degree from the Ecole Speciale d’Architecture in Paris and then a Master in Techniques of Construction at the Institute de la Construction Industrialisee also in Paris. Ana also has a strong interest in the renovations of religious spaces to improve the accessibility and sense of welcome for the community across the spectrum of ability and age. Ana is fluent in Spanish, French and English. (Ana has been with the organization for 21 years.
Jan Majewski joined the Institute for Human Centered Design (IHCD) to enrich her love for museums and her advocacy for making them more inclusive. Brainstorming and problem solving with museum professionals across the globe, she collaborates with clients to ensure their museums, exhibitions, programs, and policies provide people on the spectrum of ability and age, from all cultures, an equal opportunity for engagement and participation. Learning deeply from user/experts who have lived experience with disabilities, Jan helps share their expertise in museums through user testing, co-design, and training. The American Alliance of Museums awarded Jan the 2021 individual award for Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Inclusion.
Before joining IHCD, Jan was an Accessibility Specialist in the Disability Rights Section of the United States Department of Justice, where she worked on issues of museum accessibility, accessible technology, cooperation between the disability and business communities, and ADA technical assistance.
Jan began her career in museums at the Smithsonian Institution. Coming from a classroom background, teaching students who were deaf, she began as the Coordinator for Special Education in the Institution’s then Office of Elementary and Secondary Education. She later became the Office’s Director of Outreach Programs and then founded the Institution-wide Accessibility Program where she partnered with all of the museums and the National Zoo to increase accessibility throughout the Institution. Jan led the teams that wrote the first comprehensive set of U.S. museum exhibition universal design guidelines, the Smithsonian Guidelines for Accessible Exhibition Design, and the museum training manual, Part of Your General Public Is Disabled.
Wilhelmina (Willa) Crolius is a Senior Customer Experience Designer at Signify; her work leverages smart city technology to enable municipalities to activate their lighting infrastructure and bring more than just light to the people and communities served in those areas. Willa is directly involved in research, designing services, and developing innovation for municipalities. Willa’s interest in lighting and working with local divers community started in the early 2000s with a public park on the west side of Chicago; she used design thinking to facilitate co-creation sessions with community stakeholders in the development of the Celotex Site Park. She was the director of the design research lab at the Institute for Human Centered Design in Boston, Massachusetts, where she worked on projects ranging from community programs, historic sites, public parks, and recreation, as well as various products ranging from medical equipment to watches and furniture.
She holds two master’s degrees in design and engineering from the Royal College of Art and the Imperial College of London, where her thesis project was a smart lighting system that responded to changes in atmospheric pressure so the light would anticipate ‘pain triggers’ for people with migraines and traumatic brain injury, later exhibited as part of the London Design Week in 2018. As a Design Researcher and Design Thinking Facilitator at Tata Consulting Services in Silicon Valley, she worked on digital systems and services, including websites, dashboards, apps, digital learning platforms, and smart lighting systems.
Devashree Shah is a licensed architect in India, who graduated from the Harvard Graduate School of Design with a Master of Architecture II degree in 2023. Having worked internationally with Serie Architects and LOHA Architects, she now works as the Coordinator of Inclusive Public Transit and Inclusive Design Architect at the Institute of Human-Centered Design, Boston. She works extensively on public transit and cultural projects, collaboratively pushing design thinking toward the inclusion of the widest range of users across the spectrum of ability, age, culture/race, gender, and belief.
Her current research project is focused on affordable housing in Mumbai, with a wide range of focus, such as dual-use, repair, incrementality, and social resiliency through user diversity and inclusion. Her project, ‘Thrive – Dual-Use Housing,’ earned recognition in the ‘Inside Out’ exhibition curated by Dan Borelli at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.
She co-authored the book, ‘Architectures of Transition: Emergent Practices in South Asia’, which aims to capture the diverse models of practice and the concerns that emerging practitioners are engaging with, in South Asia. In collaboration with Rahul Mehrotra and Pranav Thole, she is co-curating the ‘State of Architecture in South Asia project’, whose components include an international conference, lecture series, publication, and a traveling exhibition.
Pranav Thole is a Harvard Graduate School of Design alumnus with a Master of Architecture in Urban Design (2023). As an Architect and Urban Designer, he's worked with distinguished firms such as Sameep Padora and Associates, Flying Elephant Studio in India, and junya.ishigami + associates in Japan Junya Ishigami + Associates in Japan. He is currently working as an Urban Designer at ONE Architecture + Urbanism, New York, and is engaged in community-driven projects that deal with climate resiliency and coastal flood protection.
He has been recognized for his interdisciplinary work, having been named a finalist in the Urban Land Institute (ULI) Competition in 2022 and the Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Innovation in Affordable Housing Competition in 2023. His current research focuses on archiving the layered architectural history of Aurangabad, a city in central India.
He has also co-authored the book, ‘Architectures of Transition: Emergent Practices in South Asia’, which aims to capture the diverse models of practice and the concerns that emerging practitioners are engaging with, in South Asia. In collaboration with Rahul Mehrotra and Devashree Shah, he is co-curating the ‘State of Architecture in South Asia project’, whose components include an international conference, lecture series, publication, and a traveling exhibition.
Meghan Dufresne has been an architecture designer at IHCD since 2012. Her childhood experience of using a wheelchair has driven her fascination with Inclusive Design and the complex relationship between people and their environment. She has experience working on environmentally and socially sustainable, multi-sensory, institutional, healthcare, commercial, religious, cultural, manufacturing, laboratory, industrial and residential projects.
Meghan's projects at IHCD have included design review and analysis of existing conditions for clients across the nation and around in the world including higher education, corporate offices, parks and recreation, municipalities
In 2005, Meghan received an accelerated master's degree from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign in Architecture on a full scholarship. Her research into restroom design, history, psychology and culture during architecture school has been recorded into the Congressional Record and presented in several publications, including the book "Ladies and Gents: Public Toilets and Gender." She has been published in Dwell magazine online as part of a design competition, taught at Suffolk University's Interior Design Department, and is a LEED Accredited Professional.
Key Details
- Date: Friday, May 3, 2024
- Time: 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m EST
- Location: Institute for Human Centered Design, SOWA Art + Design District, 560 Harrison Ave, Unit 401, Boston MA 02118
- Type: Immersive Open House
- Price: Free and Open to the Public
If you have any questions or concerns or would like to request an accommodation, please email us at communications@IHCDesign.org.