Today on Shared Space, I talk with Kati Peditto PhD, an award winning environmental psychologist from Cornell University and assistant professor at the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Leadership at the U.S. Air Force Academy.  Kati’s research focuses on the social and psychological dynamics of space, and particularly on how to create spaces for adolescents and young adults with cancer. We address both universal and specific strategies work for this patient population, and how we can all think of space for connection as a more natural and vital part of our lives.

Below are some of the highlights of our conversation. Hope you enjoy it!

1:40: Dr. Peditto shares her background and her current role as Assistant Professor at the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Leadership at the US Air Force Academy.

4:55: Kati discusses how our social needs change throughout our lifetime and how having a cancer diagnosis can change the typical dynamics for anyone and especially for young adults.

9:00: Kati shares her research and how she went about interviewing and learning from adolescents and young adults with cancer to create spaces that supported their wellbeing.

13:45: The importance of informal spaces for interaction rather than planned game spaces. “Shared spaces that allow for these informal interactions if I had to pick the most important element to social design, that is what it would be.”

16:25: Kati shares her own personal story of how she got interested in AYA cancer care and why she loves this population so much (hint: the sense of shared purpose helps).

18:25: Discuss the example of Maggie’s Centers across the UK as prime examples of social spaces to support the social health needs of cancer patients and their families. And specifically, the role of the hearth and breaking bread as the center of gathering.

22:45: Discuss how just maybe Maslow gotten wrong in his hierarchy of needs. “We evolved as group-oriented people, because we need a group of people to achieve those basic physiological needs… at the root of it, without having people around you that you can depend on, not just for resources, but for love and warmth, you cannot achieve food and safety”

24:45: Discuss Spatial Justice as a way to create more equitable spaces: “It is still a spatial justice issue to think about the populations that have otherwise been invisible in the design process and how we champion for them. “

30:25: Involving the people who will use the space in the design process: "I wish more people considered the voice of the people they are designing for. Why is it that we are still having conversations about user design discrepancies, we wouldn't be having these conversations anymore if these users were meaningfully involved in the process."