Fall 2023 Doings: Design Research, Our Lab, and Beyond!

2023 Design Research Symposium

On October 14th, The MS Design Research Program, Design Philadelphia, and the Philadelphia chapter of the Service Design Network hosted the 8th annual Design Research Symposium entitled “Aging and Health: Catalysts for Change,”. This event included a panel of experts from the region, including Penn and Drexel, and a design sprint exploring how aging can be better accommodated in Health Care environments. Micah Lockman Fine, a Design Research first-year student (DSRE 2025) had this to say about the event: “At the 2023 Drexel Design Research Symposium, my fellow students, community members and I learned to problem-solve using the Design Research method. In the panel discussion, leaders in the healthcare and housing fields introduced new frameworks for aging as future-oriented expertise. Applying these frameworks to healthcare and housing models could fundamentally shift conditions for aging community members, attitudes towards preventative and population health, and improvements in end-of-life care.

During the Design Sprint, we attendees divided ourselves into three groups: Aging in Place and Health Environments; Aging and Population Health; and Hospital Readmissions and Aging. I joined the first, inspired by the work of Drexel Design Research for Health Lab and Second Story Collective. Second Story Collective brings together students and Philadelphia locals, prototyping community-driven, equitable development for historically marginalized Black communities. Accordingly, my group sought to tackle the rift in Philadelphia between younger university students and Philadelphia locals. We observed that many undergraduate university students only interact with University City or some North Philadelphia neighborhoods, systems, and communities.  This behavior compounds decades of distrust by Philadelphia locals as a result of universities’ rapid and intentional gentrification and displacement of Philadelphia locals from their own neighborhoods.

 We considered solutions that address institutional history and bias, such as prioritizing hiring locally, expanding scholarship programs for Philadelphia locals, and implementing a student direct service program in partnership with community leaders, where students could assist local elders with daily tasks; solutions that share university resources, such as technology and lab equipment courses and public access; and two-way, power-level implementation strategies, such as paying community leaders to develop orientation materials.

The event marked my personal introduction to the Design Research method in practice. I was impressed by the thoroughness of information, clear communication, and emphasis on idea sharing and uplifting other group members. As we approach such complex problems, it’s useful to learn precedent, protocol, and ways leaders in their fields have gotten work done.”

A short booklet detailing this event can be found here:

https://issuu.com/mouthoflowers/docs/dsresymposiumconference

Many thanks to Design Research GA Micah Lockman Fine for creating the book!

Design Researchers Travel abroad to present their work:

D.S. Nicholas, DSRE program Director presented her collaborative paper at the International Conference of Education Research and Innovation 2023 in Sevilla, Spain, on Design Thinking in Higher Education, documenting her efforts to assist with Program Innovation: Design Thinking And New Program Innovation: Case Study Research In Higher Education Evolution Post Pandemic. Design Research dual degree Alumna Elise Krespan (DSRE/BIO 2018) and Nicole Feller Johnson (DSRE/FASH 2018) Presented their paper drawn on their experience as the developers of the DSRE elective course that they have developed and taught for five years called Design and Disruption. Their paper was entitled Student Archetypes In Disruptive Design Education, and it covers their efforts to create personas and creative archetypes as a way of understanding the creative processes that students develop in their work.

Citations for both papers:

Krespan, E., & Feller-Johnson, N. (2023). Applied Student Archetypes In Disruptive Design Education. ICERI2023 Proceedings, 8540–8546. https://doi.org/10.21125/iceri.2023.2175

Nicholas, D., & Anandan, S. (2023). Design Thinking And New Program Innovation: Case Study Research In Higher Education Evolution Post Pandemic. ICERI2023 Proceedings, 6032–6039. https://doi.org/10.21125/iceri.2023.1508

Professor Dee Nicholas then traveled to Swiss Center for Design and Health AG (SCDH) in
Bienne/Biel Switzerland, to complete the final phase of her Qualitative Case Study entitled: Design Thinking for Health Environments: Case study research on design innovation and health complexity. Her work centers on understanding innovative environments and health. The SCDH seeks to improve the design of spaces, products, services, interactions, and processes through evidence-based design. While at the center, she conducted interviews and observations that she will present back to the team there in Winter 2024.

Makers-giving in the Graduate Studio:

This past Monday, professors, staff, alumni, and current students met in the MS Design Research Studio for the first annual Makers-giving Event, an opportunity to get to know each other through what we make. Folks brought something they made to swap at our event; on offer were homegrown spice mixes, drawings, sculptures, cards, handmade logos, and music! Much fun and connections were forged, and we met the newest design research baby brought by alumni and new momma Allison (DSRE 2023). Program Alumna Roz (DSRE 2019) shared some amazing cards she made as part of her larger body of work that can be seen on her website: https://rozphotoblog.wordpress.com/ and Fine Arts Professors Joshua Weiss and Lewis Colburn both brought work to swap. New student Design Research student Tyler Fulton (DSRE 2025) brought original music to swap with the group. This event will be held annually so if you missed it this time around, come by next time…

Second Story Collective Presents…

In September and October, members of Second Story Collective (SSC) including Program Director Dee Nicholas presented at several outlets in the Philadelphia area with Developer Charles Lomax, and Writers Room Founder and Executive Director for Arts and Civic Innovation Rachel Wenrick; These projects are supported by research assistants form Design Research including Alisha Prabhakar (DSRE 2023) and MS Interior Architecture and Design Tanaya Deshpande (IARC 2023) and Tasha Singh (IARC 2023).

These events included: 2023 September 26th Panelist with South Street Headhouse District Katrina Johnston-Zimmerman, Assistant Director; North 10: Joshua Klaris, Executive Director; Temple University Public Policy Fellow/ Community Engagement Professional: Naida Elena Montes, Ph.D; Second Story Collective:  Charles Lomax, Chairman & CEO, Lomax Real Estate Partners; D.S. Nicholas, Associate Professor and Founding Director MS Design Research, Drexel University; Rachel Wenrick, Executive Director for Arts & Civic Innovation, Drexel University

Glen-Gery. “Trailblazers in Community Development [Philadelphia].” https://www.glengery.com/node/4121. On October 18th SSC did an Invited workshop Second Story Collective: A blueprint for community co-design and engagement at the 2023 PACDC Equitable Development Conference https://pacdc.org/2023-pacdc-equitable-development-conference-register-today/.

Design Research Social Hour

On November 30th, Beth Cain and Veronica Yeung for the Philadelphia Service Design Lab, joined our monthly DSRE Social Networking lunch. Veronica works as a Service Designer and has been part of the lab for the past 4 years and Beth recently joined the lab as the Research and Evaluation Lead. They shared several awesome projects the team is working on and answered questions on how the city approaches collaborative partnerships from a design perspective. The Service Lab is celebrating the launch of their new toolkit, which took three years of hard work and involved more than a dozen community partners to create. It can be found at the link below: https://engagement-toolkit.phila.gov/

 We'll be on break for December but will return in the New Year. Our next DSRE Social Networking Lunch will be January 18th at 12:00pm. We look forward to seeing you then! 

Reach out to dsn35@drexel.edu for more info!