Lecture 91: Evidence Based Design: An Interdisciplinary Design Approach to Improve Health and Well-Being

When: Thursday February 11, 2016 – 7:30 PM
Where: Montgomery Community College (Rockville Campus) – Humanity Building (HU), Conference Room 009 (Get Directions, Campus Map )

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Speaker: Hessam Ghamari, Ph.D.
Language: Farsi






Synopsis:

Evidence-Based Design (EBD) is the process of basing decisions about the built environment on credible research to achieve the best possible outcomes. EBD has become popular in the field of healthcare design to improve healing process through increasing safety, fostering patient and staff well being, and reducing length of stay and stress. EBD is an approach used by interior designers, architects, facility managers, and healthcare administrators in the planning, design, and construction of commercial buildings. After three decades of research, there is enough evidence that different health outcomes are directly or indirectly related to some design decisions. Although extensive studies have been devoted to EBD, less attention has been paid to identifying the relationships between specific design interventions and their implications for healthcare outcomes. This talk consists of the EBD introduction and three empirical research projects that relate to the design interventions and their implications. The first project studies the neural responses of human brain when exposed to photographic sky compositions. The second study explores neural activation in adult brains in response to visual stimulus containing formal environmental attributes, and the last study examines eye-fixations during navigation in unfamiliar environments to identify visual environmental elements and attributes of wayfinding.

About the Speaker:

Dr. Hessam Ghamari is an assistant professor in Interior Design program at Appalachian State University. Dr. Ghamari received his PhD in Environmental Interior Design from Texas Tech University (TTU), and has over 10 years’ experience in research, practice, and teaching in interior design and architecture in the United States and Iran. He also earned his M.Sc. degree in interior design from Texas Tech University and M.Arch degree from Iran Science and Technology University (IUST). His research efforts have been recognized by several awards throughout his academic career including “Best Student of The Year” in the college of Human Sciences at TTU, “Winner of Covenant Health and Social Services Fellowship”, “EDRAIT of the month (June 2015) by Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA)”, and “Best Researcher” in the school of Architecture and Environment Design at IUST. His primary research interests lie with evidence based healthcare design, wayfinding in unfamiliar environments, sustainable architecture, neuroscience and architecture, and cultural approaches in design. Dr. Ghamari has also been involved in funded research projects in various areas of neuroscience and architecture and environmental design. He has published numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals and international conferences on environment psychology, evidence based design, and healthcare design.

For this lecture: light refreshment will be provided

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