Our emotional, psychological, and social well-being determines how we handle anxiety and stress. It has a direct impact on how we think, feel, and behave in our personal spaces - and in public and professional contexts.
Our emotional and psychological well-being impacts every part of our lives, from how we handle anxiety and stress, to how we behave in personal, public, and professional contexts. Our physical surroundings, including nature or the absence of it, can have a huge impact on mental health. This workshop examines the environments we live in – including light, air quality, acoustics, and interactions with living and nonliving things – and then, seeks to create products, services, and spaces that optimize for wellbeing and healing.
Prerequisites
This course may be of special interest to those working in design, architecture, health or wellbeing, but it is open to all. There are no specific prerequisites other than an open mind and a passion for creating positive change.
How you’ll learn
This course provides a hands-on learning environment which will allow you to experiment with new tools and collaborative team work. You will do research through observation before prototyping and testing ideas. Along the way you’ll learn practical tools, including synthesis, rapid ideation, and experience prototyping techniques. Lectures are spread throughout the workshop and are immediately followed by direct hands-on activities with individual and group coaching along the way. A number of activities may run outdoors in the natural world.
What you’ll learn
What to bring
Elliott is a design and strategy consultant specializing in health and healthcare strategy, research, user experience, and service design. He’s worked on a variety of innovation projects with independent healthcare organizations, start-ups, and large systems like Cleveland Clinic and Stanford Healthcare. Elliott is currently the Director of Cove Studio, a strategy and design studio building a more just, compassionate, and functional future of care. He’s also involved in several projects around designing for well-being, including mentoring students at University of Washington. Elliott holds a bachelor’s in Sociology from Virginia Tech, a master’s in healthcare administration from the University of Minnesota, and graduated from the IDP program at Copenhagen Institute for Interaction Design.
Charu is a startup advisor, founder of Righteous Design (a social impact design consultancy), and lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania, where she created the course Design for Recovery (Healing). She was previously the Design and Product Director for Sutter Health’s Design and Innovation team, an Assistant Professor in the School of Architecture at the University of Texas at Austin, and a senior design lead in IDEO’s health practice. Some of her favorite work includes Planned Parenthood, Scout for Sutter Health (a youth mental health app) and Clinica Aviva in Peru. Charu holds a bachelor’s degree in Economics and Mathematics from Miami University, and a master’s in business administration from Harvard University.
