The problem with which this study is concerned is that of identifying new developments in interior design education which may have resulted from curriculum reevaluations.

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a dementia that unfortunately affects many people around the world and also here in Manitoba. This practicum explores how an interactive environment can potentially improve the quality of life for people living with AD. The learning objectives of this project were to investigate how an environment designed with total wellness in mind can support residents with AD. Specifically, the residents are millennials – people born in the 1980s to 2000s. The environment is one floor of a personal care home. An extensive literature review was conducted of topics relating to wellness, mental, physical, and spiritual health. The role of community and socialization’s effect on quality of life was researched. Precedents were also analyzed. These investigations, along with programming led to a design which provides a therapeutic central hub for residents to visit and socialize with others while enjoying a variety of activities, both planned and spontaneous. / October 2016

MTech. / This study discusses factors that impact on the implementation of sustainable design in KwaZulu-Natal. It aims to establish the interior design profession‟s understanding of sustainable design both nationally and internationally, and to identify factors that influence their sustainable design practices within an identified region in South Africa. A qualitative research approach was employed, and an interpretive paradigm chosen as the theoretical framework of the study. Data comprised of ten discursively orientated semi-structured individual interviews and focus group interviews. The research design consists of the collection, categorisation and analysis of data, as well as a review of the findings in relation to current literature. Conclusions showed that education and experience informs designer‟s understanding and values towards sustainable design. Designers‟ understanding and sustainable design values affect their behaviour, attitudes, and likelihood of practice in accordance with the constitution, legislation, policy and building regulations. These in turn determine whether they are blocked by barriers, by chance overcome barriers to find solutions, or strive to find solutions to overcome barriers. Barriers to sustainable interior design include education, cost, products and materials, rating tools and the client. Solutions that were established include improved knowledge of sustainable design, a change in the cost perception, improved knowledge and scope of products and materials, and educating the client.

This project seeks to investigate a hybrid type between the capsule and boutique hotel, aimed at business travelers. This will be achieved by extracting qualities of each typology through systematic analysis to establish an environment that responds to a niche user. Identifying key characteristics through a number of precedents provides the foundation for the investigation and the programming criteria for spatial development. Owing to the technological revolution, there is an increasing need to translate the multitude of computer-driven interfaces to human-centred interaction. Computers, portable music players, mobile phones and wireless connections have fundamentally impacted social dynamisms fostering artificial identities and negating traditional notions of physical distance. Forever remaining plugged-in has led to the dematerialization of built space, the denial to the user of their sensorial abilities, the rendering of one space just the same as another. By re-awakening the senses through interactive encounters, a sense of familiarity, personal experience, and the creation of memory is lent to individual environments. In this sense, the interior designer is no longer merely a form giver, but is rather placed in the position of a fundamental interpreter. Focusing on the psychological impacts of place and spatial identity, this exploration will take advantage of the possibilities provided by contemporary technologies. Translating these interfaces to perform in response to body movements and presence within spaces creates a user centered model. In effect, this design approach assists the user in recognizing their existing location establishing an association between body movement and interior surroundings.

Depression, self-harming acts and suicide are mental health issues that seriously plague specific Indigenous communities in Canada. First Nations youth have an alarmingly higher suicide rate than the majority of the Canadian population. Usually occurring in and around small reserve village environments, these suicides rupture entire communities that are forced to deal with the sadness, frustration and loss that surrounds the death of a young person. In response to this issue, this interior design practicum inquiry addresses the tragedy of youth suicide in Manitoba’s northern, remote, and reserve communities. To help reduce the epidemic prevalence of suicide, a treatment and prevention center formulated out of ideas gathered from research into Cree world view, hybrid and Indigenist approaches to culture, cultural continuity, mental health healing methods and environmental design has been designed to provide care for First Nations adolescents living in the North.

The objective of this practicum project was to explore the role of interior design in transforming unused urban space into public opportunities for gathering. This was achieved by extracting design guidelines from theoretical concepts of space and place, interiority, and immersion. In doing so, subsidiary concepts of interactivity, placemaking, boundaries and thresholds were also examined in order to help achieve the overall goal of transforming in-between space within the city of Winnipeg into meaningful opportunities for spatial and social interaction. It is the intention of the project that these newly designed spaces will help to foster spatial opportunities for pausing that will help to engage the users of the space with one another, the city of Winnipeg, and in turn create a sense of place.

The space occupied by New Media is elusive. Its inherent omnipresence is yet another example of the loss of physicality of the information age. The contemporary gallery⎯- the white cube -⎯functions as a pseudo-religious tomb; suspending art-objects in limbo, without reference of time and space. Exhibition spaces for art have functioned to house the object for hundreds of years. But suddenly, the object has dissolved, slipping through the art museum’s desperate grasp. The following is a study of the tridactic exchange of art, the participant, and three-dimensional space. At the site of the city’s birth, new structure and cherished relic converge: erasing and re-writing, veiling and un-veiling, concealing and revealing, spaces evolve and dissolve, growing a continuously fluid environment. The result is an Interior Design driven solution for displaying New Media: a hybrid model that synthesizes the ubiquitous museum and the stable institution, forming what will become The New Gallery.

Residential downsizing in later life is a complex process often laden with emotional stress. This design practicum explores the adverse effects of this transition, and how they might be mitigated through interior design. Central to this analysis is the significance of home and the presence of memory in sentimental environments. The primary lens for investigation is phenomenology. This theoretical perspective dissects the lived world as a set of phenomena, exploring the relationships between humans, as sensory beings, and the given world. To consider phenomenology in relation to context and design programme, numerous and diverse investigations are conducted. Investigations include: contextual analysis, precedent analysis, and theoretical literature review. Each exploration supplements the design process and proposal of the hypothetical Assisted Living Residence, “170 Ashland Avenue”.

This project seeks to investigate a hybrid type between the capsule and boutique hotel, aimed at business travelers. This will be achieved by extracting qualities of each typology through systematic analysis to establish an environment that responds to a niche user. Identifying key characteristics through a number of precedents provides the foundation for the investigation and the programming criteria for spatial development. Owing to the technological revolution, there is an increasing need to translate the multitude of computer-driven interfaces to human-centred interaction. Computers, portable music players, mobile phones and wireless connections have fundamentally impacted social dynamisms fostering artificial identities and negating traditional notions of physical distance. Forever remaining plugged-in has led to the dematerialization of built space, the denial to the user of their sensorial abilities, the rendering of one space just the same as another. By re-awakening the senses through interactive encounters, a sense of familiarity, personal experience, and the creation of memory is lent to individual environments. In this sense, the interior designer is no longer merely a form giver, but is rather placed in the position of a fundamental interpreter. Focusing on the psychological impacts of place and spatial identity, this exploration will take advantage of the possibilities provided by contemporary technologies. Translating these interfaces to perform in response to body movements and presence within spaces creates a user centered model. In effect, this design approach assists the user in recognizing their existing location establishing an association between body movement and interior surroundings.

Depression, self-harming acts and suicide are mental health issues that seriously plague specific Indigenous communities in Canada. First Nations youth have an alarmingly higher suicide rate than the majority of the Canadian population. Usually occurring in and around small reserve village environments, these suicides rupture entire communities that are forced to deal with the sadness, frustration and loss that surrounds the death of a young person. In response to this issue, this interior design practicum inquiry addresses the tragedy of youth suicide in Manitoba’s northern, remote, and reserve communities. To help reduce the epidemic prevalence of suicide, a treatment and prevention center formulated out of ideas gathered from research into Cree world view, hybrid and Indigenist approaches to culture, cultural continuity, mental health healing methods and environmental design has been designed to provide care for First Nations adolescents living in the North.