Inclusive Designers Podcast

We all love to go out to a nice restaurant and enjoy a fine meal, but it isn’t always easy for someone with a disability. A poorly thought out space can make for an uncomfortable or unsafe experience for those patrons. Enter Contento NYC… great food, great wine, and a great space for all, whether you have a disability or not. Going beyond the ADA basics, what challenges did they face, and what solutions did they cook up to to lessen the limitations and still provide the best service?  IDP talks to Yannick Benjamin, owner of Contento NYC, to bring you a taste of what it takes to create a restaurant design without barriers.

Guest: Yannick Benjamin, is a restaurant owner and disabilities advocate. His passion for advancing opportunities for those living with disabilities led him to create two organizations (Wheeling Forward; Wine on Wheels) that both bring awareness and best practice solutions to the hospitality industry, and far beyond.

– References:

• Yannick Benjamin – Instagram: @YannickBenjamin

• Contento NYC – Instagram: @ContentoNYC

• Wine on Wheels – Instagram: @wineonwheelsNYC

• Wheeling Forward

• ADA Standards for Accessible Design

• Lidia Celebrates America: Overcoming the Odds, A Restaurant Without Barriers

• ‘Dining with Dignity’ – Adaptive Flatware

• Bluet – Maine Wild Blueberry Sparkling Wine

• Jean Paul Viollet – Adaptive Sommelier Tray

Contento NYC: Serving Up Inclusive Design

(Music 1/ Show Intro)

Janet: In this series we will be discussing specific examples of design techniques that make a positive difference for people living with certain human conditions.

Carolyn: The more a designer understands the client and or the community the more effective and respectful the design will be.

—

INTRO:

Janet: Welcome to Inclusive Designers Podcast, I am your host, Janet Roche…

Carolyn: and I am your moderator, Carolyn Robbins…

Janet: Carolyn, we have such a wonderful show today! Our guest is Yannick Benjamin— a restauranteur and expert sommelier with a truly inspiring story!

Carolyn: Yes, and we are very happy to add this to our menu as the first episode for 2022!

Janet: Did I ever tell you that one of my very first words was ‘restaurant’? It just goes to show you what was important to me at a very young age.

Carolyn: And I’ll bet the word ‘design’ wasn’t far behind.

Janet: Exactly.

Carolyn: You also have a great story from maybe two days before we interviewed him…

Janet: I do. So what happened was I turned on the TV to PBS, and there was Lydia Bastianich profiling Yannick and his restaurant ‘Contento’ on her show called Lidia Celebrates America: Overcoming the Odds…

Carolyn: And you called me, like, ‘omg, turn on PBS’…

Janet: That’s right.

Carolyn: And I highly recommend our listeners give it a look… it was a very ‘tasteful’ segment.

Janet: Oh boy. Well, ignoring that pun, we should mention that Yannick is also in a wheelchair himself and designed his restaurant to reduce physical barriers and to be inclusive for everyone.

Carolyn: We should also note that there was some construction being done at the restaurant which you will hear in the background of our interview. The work on improving their space didn’t stop down for us as Contento continues to ‘serve up’ their best as an inclusive environment.

Janet: (chuckles) I think you’ve reached your pun quota for this intro… but we do think these ‘oh so familiar sounds’ that we know and we love only add to the charm of this interview.

Carolyn: You work with construction, you deal with contractors, you know these sounds.

Janet: Absolutely.

Carolyn: Just to give you a sample of Yannick’s story, not only is his restaurant ‘Contento’ designed to be accessible to patrons with disabilities, he also started two organizations: ‘Wheeling Forward’ to help those living with disabilities, and ‘Wine on Wheels’ that promotes expanding opportunities for the disabled within the hospitality industry.

Janet: But we’ll let him tell us about all of that and more in his own words.

Carolyn: And with that, here is our interview with Yannick Benjamin… Restauranteur, Sommelier, and Disability advocate…

(Music 2 – Interview)

Janet: Welcome Yannick. We’re so excited to have you today. Thank you so much for being here and being on our podcast, Inclusive Designers.

Yannick: Well, thank you very much for having me. It’s a real pleasure and an honor.

Janet: Thank you. Let’s just dive right on into it. (Yannick: sure). Tell us a little bit about you, your restaurant and the inspiration behind it.

Yannick: Yeah, thank you for your question. I’m born and raised in New York. Both of my parents are from France and they’re both in hospitality or they were. My mom worked cleaning houses. She worked for a lot of different families and my dad came to New York in 1963. He followed his two oldest brothers who came here already. My father came right after the French Algerian war. And he started working as a dishwasher for his brother who was a general manager at a very famous French restaurant which still exists called La Grenouille, which is pretty much directly across the street from the big famous Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center. (Janet: huh).

And of course, being that my father was incredibly close with his two brothers, they only had Sundays off, they would come over and I would just hear them talk about the restaurant business as a kid. And I just thought it was such an exciting profession, seemed like there was so much happening. It just seemed kind of glamorous. (Janet: laughs).

And I grew up, you know, in a New York that was, I guess on one hand was exciting and glamorous, but then on the other side, wasn’t, depending on where you lived at. And I grew up in a working-class neighborhood called Hell’s Kitchen, which was on the west side of Manhattan, which was not so glamorous. So it was very much a blue collar, hardworking neighborhood. (Janet: right). And so hearing about all these exciting stories kind of took me away from that part of town and allowed me to dream and imagine. So pretty much at a very young age, I knew that I wanted to be in the hospitality industry and be like my uncles and be exactly like my dad.

Janet: That’s, that’s a great story. And by the way, yeah, Hell’s Kitchen doesn’t exactly inspire some sort of a white picket fence kind of, (Yannick: that’s true) right, exactly. So, tell us a little bit more about the restaurant itself and what was your inspiration? (Yannick: yeah). I mean, obviously, you have a whole bunch of like with the family background and, (Yannick: yeah) it’s in your blood, right, so (Yannick: yeah) but what was the inspiration for ‘Contento’?

Yannick: Well, I’m just going to, I’ll break it up into a couple of points to make it as easy as possible. Being that you guys are from up north as well, my favorite TV show growing up as a kid was ‘Cheers’. (Janet: laughs). And I just loved the dynamics of ‘Cheers’. And on top of the fact that I already wanted to be in hospitality, I knew that if I was ever going to open up a kind of like restaurant, bistro, whatever you want to call it, I wanted to have that same kind of feeling.

I wanted to be that guy, that centerpiece and have all his friends around him and just have a good time while at work. Right? Be happy when I was going to work and be happy when I was going to leave work. So that also helped me come up with the name ‘Contento’ (Janet: right) because happy, being happy, is really in the pursuit of happiness. Right? (Janet: Right) So ‘Contento’ means happy both in Italian, and in Spanish.

And where the restaurant is located, we’re located in a pretty historical neighborhood in East Harlem. It was predominantly Italian immigrants in the early 1900s, and then it transitioned into a mostly Hispanic, Puerto Rican, Latino, Mexican, you name it. So I really wanted to figure out a way to pay homage to all of these immigrant groups that really kind of added so much flavor to what we know East Harlem as today. And so, Contento was just an obvious choice because again, Contento means happy in Italian, (Janet: Italian), and in Spanish, and then really kind of fits to what my philosophy is.

So then that’s how that happened. The location where we’re at today. I discovered it a few years ago, along with my partner and dear friend, George Gallego, who actually was assigned to me as my mentor, when I was in a car accident in 2003. Unfortunately, that car accident in 2003 left me permanently paralyzed at the age of 25-years old. So a lot was happening at that time of my life. Things were looking very good. I was very motivated. I was incredibly hardworking and I was, I had a pretty extensive resume that I built. And you could say that I was incredibly ambitious. I was well on my way to doing great things I think in, in the hospitality field.

And then I found myself paralyzed. And while I was in rehab, I was assigned a mentor, because there’s really no handbook that’s handed to you. (Janet: right). Well, this is how things are going to be, and this is how you’re going to do things going forward as a paraplegic, as a full-time wheelchair user. So I was handed this wonderful gentleman, George Gallego, who was already injured for quite a long time. And we had stayed in touch even after I left rehabilitation. Where we really bonded was, I wanted to be active in wheelchair sports. And he really helped me transition, where I did a lot of New York City marathons, I did Boston, Chicago, so on.

But anyway, he was, he’s what he calls himself, and I agree, a social entrepreneur. He’s got his hands in a lot of different things, very, very incredibly motivated individual, but also very generous. And he said, Yannick, he said, you need to be working for yourself. I want to see you open up your own place. And I just thought, George, you have no idea (Janet: laughs) how incredibly brutal and unforgiving this industry is. Well, in any case, he was walking by this spot that was literally a hundred feet away from the building that he lives at right now. He was walking his dog. He contacted me. He said that this spot looked very interesting and then that’s how Contento came about.

But I think what really makes Contento unique and what makes it stand out is that because I myself have a disability and it’s so important that, if I’m going to work at a restaurant, that things are very well calculated, right? (Janet: right). And that things are very well thought out and laid out. So there has to be thoughtful design behind it. How the bar is set up, the fact that I can be able to do a 360 around that. The fact that someone that’s on a wheelchair that comes to the restaurant as a patron can also eat and drink at the bar comfortably.

So counter seating, table heights, space in between the tables, people able to roam freely. So there’s not just myself that has a disability, that, that’s part of Contento, but there’s also George Gallego and then four others. So collectively there’s six people that are involved with the Contento project. So having that meaningful design and that thoughtful design is really, really incredible. And that’s what really makes it unique I think from a lot of other restaurants. Not just in New York and not just the United States, but globally.

Janet: I totally agree with you, and that’s why I really wanted to have you on the show. When designers hear that I’m a designer for people with different types of living conditions, that they tend to think that I’m the person to go to get around the ADA, to get around the codes that have been put in. And so, I am here to say to you, so that, we’ve got Yannick Benjamin, who has created a successful restaurant while also having everything that’s beneficial for everybody and for full inclusion which I think is such an amazing point of this.

And this was the driving force for me to like, well hound you, that’s the only way to describe it. (Yannick: ha-ha). So, I mean, what was the, let’s talk about a little more about the design. (Y: yeah). So what were some of the challenges with this space? I mean that the bathroom is always huge, right? I mean, (Yannick: yeah), that’s just that sort of ADA 101, and we won’t even get into the fact that when people use it as storage, right.

Yannick: Yes, unfortunately, yes.

Janet: Or I always love when they put the big barrels (Yannick: yeah) well, paper towels. Like, well, you know, like wastepaper baskets, (Yannick: yeah) like in front of the toilet as well. (Yannick: yeah) I could go on… but for you, you have a really unique point because you’re the entrepreneur, you’re the restauranteur, you’ve been doing this for, forever. So what was the challenges on that space? Like, did you get all the tables that you needed to get in there? Maybe we could start with that.

Yannick: Well, I’ll tell you the biggest challenge of that particular restaurant, I would say, I think the most important thing why I decided to go into that space was, you know, for all of you who don’t know, when you’re going to start a restaurant from the bottom up and this space was empty, it was bare, it was neglected. So there was a lot of work that needed to be done.

So it’s a very expensive project to get involved with, any kind of restaurant. Even if it’s like bare minimum, kind of the essentials, it’s still very expensive. It’s a big investment. (Janet: right). But the most important that was attractive was that the rent was incredibly cheap. (Janet: laughs). So the landlord was very generous. Very cheap. I mean, it’s crazy. And then also he gave us 9-months’ rent free to construct and build out. (Janet: wow). So those were very attractive (Janet: offers) proposition, offers, exactly.

But I would say, the biggest challenge on the other end of that was that the space, it’s incredibly small. And in an ideal world, you know, if you wanted to create a perfectly universally designed business or a restaurant, you’d want a really big space. I would probably say the size of our restaurant is probably slightly over 1200-square feet. (Janet: oh). So you can imagine that’s not very big. (Janet: no). It’s not very big when you consider that you’ve got to build a dishwasher, you’ve got the kitchen. Then on top of that, you’ve got to build a really big wheelchair accessible bathroom. So that doesn’t leave you much in the way of square footage, as far as the actual main dining room. And we were left with probably just under 600-feet, (Janet: hmm), which means that left us with about 35-seats in total with the restaurant.

Now, that’s not including the fact that if we really wanted to, let’s say, if we, this was purely a business that was run by able-bodied individuals, you would have more tables, but that’s not the case. I needed to get around, George needed to get around. And so we didn’t put as many tables, so it’s not as clustered as a typical small restaurant. But what that means also is that means it’s less revenue. (Janet: right).

So those are some of the challenges, as far as all of that goes. But what I will say is that, because of the sacrifices that we made and because of the mission that we’re on, and the agenda that we’ve decided to stay on, we have seen an incredible amount of support of people with disabilities who have come to our restaurant.

Because I think that, you know, the most important thing, you know— I really want to stress this and I say this to everybody— you could design a perfectly, beautifully, you know, well thought out business that’s completely ADA compliant, that’s accessible, that’s clever… but if the people that are working there are not trained to deal with people with disabilities, aren’t cultured, aren’t educated and they’re just, aren’t kind enough, all of that will mean Nothing. It’s so secondary. And so I think that people who have disabilities who have decided to become regulars, who decided to support us, know that they’re going to a place that’s one: safe, two: that’s comfortable, that’s empathetic to their needs.

But no one’s ever going to be judged or treated differently because they’re rolling up in a wheelchair, because they have a guide dog. But instead, we’re going to embrace them and we’re going to really appreciate them, because… you’ve got to think about it this way: Imagine the effort that it’s taken that person in a wheelchair to get to your establishment… maybe dealing with broken elevators, their paratransit being late, could be very stressful to have to travel, especially in a city like New York when you have a disability. So I think those are all really incredibly important factors to take into consideration. (Janet: right). And I feel like we have an incredibly empathetic, sensitive and kind staff.

Janet: But I think you’re absolutely right. I think it’s, you can have all the bells and whistles, you can have like the most beautiful, (Yannick: Right). most perfect bathroom, that’s not being used for storage or whatever else it was, (Yannick: laughs), you know, whatever I’ll say to, to use it for, but you have to also train the staff in order to have them understand, even just like the nuances. So you can literally kind of get to the meat and potatoes of your business, (Yannick: right), which is serving food, which is then creating like an ambiance that they are going to want to come back to.

So I think that that’s an important part, (Yannick: Right) but you also, I thought it was interesting, so you had mentioned already the lower, like the bar heights and stuff like that. I’ve seen that only once before in California. (Yannick: yeah, ha-ha) And I took a few pictures like selfies with it. So it was, I was a little surprised on how progressive it was. And of course, it didn’t matter, because that was the other part, like it was at the back of the bar. And so you still, this is pre-pandemic, so you still had to walk through (Yannick: right) or, you know, or get through like a throng of individuals to get to that part. (Yannick: sure). But I also noticed like, you put that in the front of the building too. So were some of those things like considerations or (Yannick: yeah) or yeah, do you want to walk us through some of those?

Yannick: Yeah, yeah. I would say that, if you come to the restaurant, that’s pretty much the, the centerpiece. So, the first thing you come in you see the lower counter seating of the actual bar itself. And it’s not just two seats. Like most people do that, but it’s sort of in the back and kind of like what you were talking about using a wheelchair accessible or ADA bathrooms as storage, a lot of times they use that part of the bar as storage or as a service bar, which they should not. In our case, it’s a main focal piece and there’s six seats there, devoted to that. So that’s really important.

So I think already, when you come to the restaurant, there’s something genuine and very warm about it. I also think it takes away that barrier, right? It’s like when you go to a bar and you sit at the bar, that bars’ height, the bartender is kind of behind, so there’s that lack of intimacy. When you get rid of that, now, you’re, now you’re, kind of face-to-face, there’s less intrusion there. And I think that’s what makes our bar quite special.

And I’m hoping that, and that’s a dream of mine certainly, this is not to be known as the only place that has a bar like that. I certainly hope many, many people copy that and it can do the same thing too. This is not about me creating a copyright on it, instead it’s like, by all means, copy away.

Janet: Right. Yeah. Well, just so we’re clear, Carolyn and I have talked about, we are going to come visit you at some point (Yannick: oh please, that would be lovely), and it’s not just from your spectacular wine collection for which I’ve heard (Yannick: ha-ha) is also amazing.

But it is interesting. And, you know, even, I’m an average height, female. So, but sometimes even getting on those bar stools, like with a little bit of a high heel or whatever, this is just, (Yannick: yeah) you know, what considered an able-bodied person (Yannick: yeah) it’s still a little difficult.

I don’t know why the bar heights ended up getting so high. (Yannick: laughs) It was a design thing at some point, and there, there is something kind of interesting about that and I think you’re right when you lower that, like you’re literally lowering the bar (Yannick: right, laughs). And I wonder if that’s because like, otherwise you just kind of, sort of like would zoom, right, you’d kind of only see yourself from sort of like your shoulders on up for the most part. Whereas if you’re maybe just a little bit lower than you see more of the person, and I wonder if that has something to do with it as well, like the way you created the intimacy that you were talking about.

Yannick: I think what it does is that it puts everyone at an even playing field. And what I mean by that is that, for example, you and I, Janet, we can go to Contento, and let’s say, we were like, ‘Hey, let’s just go sit at the bar because we like the bar’. But as opposed to like me looking up at you, cause you’re, you’re sitting on that high stool. And I’m looking at you kind of upwards (Janet: right) at you and you’re looking downwards at me— now we can both sit down together, eye to eye at the bar. And I think that that’s something that’s really important, you know, I, that sense of belonging and that sense of feeling like everybody else is incredibly important.

And so a lot of people that come to the restaurant that have a disability actually want to eat and sit at the bar because they very rarely ever have a chance to get to experience that. Right? (Janet: right) And so they can go with their date. They can go with their wife, husband, best friend, whatever it is, and just sit there all night and have a good time, as they should.

Janet: As they, well they should. Yeah. No, that’s, that’s, that’s really terrific. So what, I know that you did, so you did the bar, you’ve done the bathroom. (Yannick: yeah) is there… you know, I know that you talked about being very inclusive in terms of, even like the utensils, like you were thoughtful about the utensils. (Yannick: yeah). So talk about some of the more, like, the pinpointing some of those, like really important other factors that you had thought extensively about and implemented in Contento.

Yannick: Well, I will say this, even though I myself have a disability, I think it’s important to understand that no disabilities are alike. And what I mean is, because you might see myself and someone else in a wheelchair, we might have two totally different needs. And even though in the census, they categorize everyone with, you know, whether it’s, if you’re an amputee or blind, under one group of having a disability and there’s 61-million Americans that have a disability by the way. (Janet: right). We’re all incredibly different, right? And so I would be remiss to say to you, like, of course, like, it’s always a learning process for myself.

I myself have a, I had a grandfather that was blind. I have a cousin that’s blind. I have another cousin that’s a paraplegic. But even though despite all of that, I am constantly learning. I am constantly evolving. And me not evolving and me not asking questions would mean that now I’ve rested on my laurels. And then I think I know it all. I absolutely do not know it all.

So there’s all this new technology. Things are constantly changing (Janet: right) and because the world of disability and the recognition of people with disability being independent is still kind of new, there’s a lot of new terminologies that are still being kind of implemented. (Janet: right). But you are correct that we have a menu in braille. We’ve done everything possible with our website to make it accessible for the low vision and blind community. We have adaptive flatware for people who have minimal dexterity with their hands and upper body. And, if you don’t know what that is, you can just Google ‘adaptive flatware’ and it, and it’s a company called ‘Dining with Dignity’. They’re absolutely fabulous. And not only that, but the silverware itself, the adaptive flatware, looks good. It doesn’t look like it came from the hospital. (Janet: right)

For the bathroom itself, everything that we have there is touch-less. The soap dispenser is touch-less. The paper dispenser is touch-less. So things of that nature. Are we perfect? Certainly not, but we’ve put everything, we put our heart and soul into it. And most importantly, we are all ears. So if someone else that has a disability notices something that we are, we’re missing, or it’s something that can be done, we are on it. Please, tell us, we love it.

So listen, I’m an incrementalist, and, you know, Rome is not Rome because it was built overnight. Rome is Rome because it was built over 2000 years. Right. (Janet: laugh). So it’s a compounding effect, and I think that, you know, you come back next year to Contento and it will be that much better. And that’s just how life is, generally speaking, you are supposed to get better. And our objective is to do better than the day before.

Janet: So I did read in that New York times article, and I saw it on Lydia’s show, and we haven’t talked about it, is your Sommelier box that you designed for yourself. (Yannick: yes). Can you talk a little bit about that? (Yannick: absolutely). I love the ingenuity with that as well. And it just made me like, as soon as I started, I was like, well, of course, like, and I thought to myself, why doesn’t everybody have that? That’s the other part.

Yannick: I mean, I think, that adaptive tray that you see me using, is something from trial and error. I mean, it started off as very basic, in order for something to kind of reach that level of greatness or perfection, you have to go through a lot of steps, you kind of, (Janet: iterations), yeah, a lot of, exactly. And so that’s, that was the case.

I was very lucky again and blessed to have met this gentleman. His name is Jean Paul Viollet, who’s a very good friend of mine, who’s a master carpenter out in Brooklyn. And we had started talking and I said, I really would love to like, create something. And we just kind of went back and forth, again, trial and error. And not only did he create this really practical and mindful tray, but he made it look so beautiful and it is beautiful and it’s sturdy and it’s going to last forever. And I’m so, I really owe him so much.

Janet: Maybe we could get a picture of it (Yannick: yeah) on the website, you know, it might be actually kind of great. And obviously we’ll give your, (Yannick: yeah, thank you), your friend a shout out as well. (Yannick: yes). And all of this stuff you can find on InclusiveDesigners.com …

Let’s talk about going into the kitchen. What were the things that you put into your kitchen to allow for your accessibility, for Georges’ accessibility? When you were on the TV show with Lydia, (Yannick: yeah). She even said something like, ‘boy, your kitchen small’ (Yannick: ha-ha). And so, I mean, obviously you had to work with the space you had, (Yannick: right) but getting around, I think, was probably your main driver there, but was there anything that you learned from that experience? Was there anything that you had, had a takeaway. And then I guess it kind of goes into the would’ve, could’ve and should’ve, categories, (Yannick: yeah) like, is there anything that you would have, or could have, or should have done with the spaces? Maybe we could start with the kitchen.

Yannick: Listen, again, space was incredibly challenging. And what we did was we prioritized the dining room, making sure that it was as accessible and spacious as possible because that’s where people are going to eat, that’s where the patrons are, (Janet: right), and that’s where I was going to be at all the time. So the kitchen, it’s not to say that it was an afterthought. I myself could get into the kitchen. I could cook things if I wanted to, but during service, it would be very challenging because space is very limited. So our priority was making sure that the bar and the main dining room was accessible.

Of course, if we ever decide to open up another place or move to another space, it will be significantly bigger. Hopefully. And because of that, we would be able to create a kitchen that is really accessible and hopefully have someone that has a disability have the opportunity to come in and work safely and work comfortably in the kitchen itself. But that, that’s still a dream and that’s still an objective for the future itself. There is no doubt about it.

Janet: Right. Well, it may be, you know, but at the end of the day, yes, you have a small space, (Yannick: exactly) but you have a space that is accessible. So it’s, it’s still living the dream. Right? (Yannick: ha-ha, still living the dream). But it’s getting there. (Yannick: yeah). Yeah, (laughs). So, I think my next question for you is, what would you like designers to know in starting to work on their own ‘inclusive spaces’ projects, in particular, obviously restaurants? Like what was your big takeaway from doing this? (Yannick: yeah). Was there anything that you’ve found surprising?

Yannick: Oh there’s, the moment you tear off, like tear off the walls, (Janet: oh, this is true, right), you find a lot of things, (Janet: there’s a surprise), yeah, surprise, surprise. I mean, well I think the most important thing, obviously there’s something called, as you guys know, the American Disabilities Act and there’s all these federal guidelines that are incredibly detailed, and well done, about how doors should be, how wide they should be, and all the specs and being able to do a 360. There’s even, how thick the carpet should be as well. If you’re going to install carpet in a business, which is pretty amazing.

But I think the biggest mistake that architects or designers or business owners do is, yes, obviously there’s the point person who has a craft in that particular, profession. They, they’ve worked hard on that. They’ve perfected their craft is what I should be saying.

However, I think if you really want to make it accessible, you should ask people in the community, do some research, (Janet: right) go on social media. (Janet: yeah) Go on the internet. There are plenty of people with disabilities, even if you’re not too familiar with the community, that you can find out, reach over the aisle and ask them for their opinions and their thoughts. Because then it just becomes very sterile by just going by those guidelines. You know, instead of just putting like generic grab bars, maybe put some really nice grab bars, right? (Janet: right). Make it look like it’s part of the aesthetics of the restaurant. So anyway, I think that really going and making that effort and reaching out to the community and asking their thoughts is very beneficial and very educational.

Janet: Absolutely. You kind of touched on that a little bit in the beginning too.  We, you know, we also, at least from my perspective, we look at a lot of evidence-based design pieces in order to design. But it sounds to me like you really thought a lot about this. I mean, you come at it from a personal experience, but you also, you know, you really had some real good thoughts about other people who, you could have just been focused on yourself and what worked for you, but it was actually, you were looking at other people with other types of disabilities (Yannick: yeah), and such. So, I mean, it was well thought out.

Yannick: Thank you. Thank you. (Janet: laugh) I mean, I think the most important thing is, is that I had an opportunity to create a restaurant built around my needs and being able to provide the service, the comfort, and sharing my passion with people without any true obstruction. But also being able to serve other people with disabilities that felt comfortable being there and that I can make them feel comfortable. So, it was a two-way street and it’s just a real joy and it’s really wonderful and I’m just absolutely blessed and very lucky to have this opportunity to be able to do so because there’s not too many people who can say that.

Janet: Right. And I love some of the taglines that you put with the restaurant… it’s ‘Roots, Respect, Restore’. I think you kind of covered it a lot (Yannick: laugh) in, in the conversation, you know, you talked about your roots, (Yannick: yeah) and the roots of even where the building is, right. (Yannick: right) So there’s that, and then the respect you’re giving all the individual people (Yannick: exactly) and then maybe talk a little bit more about restore or is that just natural with (Yannick: no) the restaurant that you can kind of go sit at and have a nice time?

Yannick: No, no. Well, the word restore, I mean the word restaurant, excuse me, the etymology means restoration. And what the original concept of the restaurant was, it was a way for people, they would do these long journeys on their horses and on your way to wherever you were going, to whatever your destination, there was a stopover. And you would stop there, and you were offered a nice warm bowl of consommé, and you were there to get, to restore yourself.

And I think more so than ever, especially with what’s happened these last few years— really incredibly challenging times— I think the most important thing is you come into a place to restore yourself and to forget about any problems that you may have at that current moment. (Janet: hmm). It’s a place to make yourself feel good, to kind of make yourself feel rejuvenated. And I think, that’s the purpose of food, right? I mean, food is satisfying, food nourishes you (Janet: nourishes, right) and you feel revitalized. And I think that’s the concept of Contento. So you, maybe you came in not feeling so happy, (Janet: laughs) but you leave feeling very happy.

Janet: Well, I can’t wait to come in and, I’ll be happy going there and also happy while I’m there. And, and I will, I’m sure. Happy… well, it’s not going to come out right. Happy to leave, but you know what I mean? (Yannick: laughs) having had the experience. (Yannick: leave happier, leave happier). Leave happier, yes, exactly. (Yannick: exactly). So then also, why don’t you tell us a little bit about, the type of restaurant it is, what kind of food you guys serve? And I’ve heard a rumor. I might’ve already mentioned it once, but I think it’s worth repeating, (Yannick: laugh) is that you have an incredible wine selection.

Yannick: Well, thank you so much for your kind words. The restaurant, I mean, the food at the restaurant is Peruvian based. The chef, his name is Oscar Lorenzzi. He is born and raised in Lima, Peru, but he is French classically trained. So a lot of his techniques are French inspired. But he’s also inspired very much by the cuisine of the Mediterranean. So you’ll see a little bit of that also in the cuisine, but it is very much Peruvian and I absolutely love it. The food’s delicious, it’s incredibly accessible and approachable. And the price points are very reasonable. It’s fun. It’s eclectic. And it’s just delicious.

As far as our beverage program goes, we have an extensive, cocktail program that’s also quite unique. And then the wine list is quite extensive. We do have a very, what I would call a geeky wine list. (Janet: laughs) Wines from all around the world. We have wines from Armenia, from the country of Georgia, Lebanon, Israel, Morocco. So you’re really kind of getting a little tour of, of different wines from around the world. We also have wines from lots of interesting places across the United States. We even have a blueberry sparkling wine from the state of Maine (Janet: huh), called ‘Bluet’. And the price points for the wine itself are also incredibly reasonable because I know that a lot of times we go to restaurants and there’s only wines that start off at a hundred plus, certainly not the case at ‘Contento’.

Janet: I think that that’s fabulous. I think we’ve gotten, you know, gotten a really good understanding of not only the restaurant and its, its history and the design challenges that you had. Plus also the design solutions that you’ve come up with. (Yannick: yeah). So would you like to talk about, ‘Wheeling Forward’, you want to talk to us a little bit about that? How did you start ‘Wheeling Forward’? And then, is the Wine on Wheels sort of like just an offshoot of that, or…

Yannick: It is an offshoot of that. Thank you for your question. ‘Wheeling Forward’ was started in 2012. It was created alongside, my good friend, Alex Elegudin, who he himself is a quadriplegic. I met him while I was in rehab. And we befriended each other and we just, we were somewhat dumbfounded that these other individuals that we also became friends with had issues going back home because they simply didn’t have the financial resources to make small home modifications that go a long way. Or some of them lived in a five-story apartment, things of that nature. So we knew that one day that we would create an organization to help these individuals. Individuals that have a disability, individuals from lower income backgrounds and also people perhaps who don’t have the love, care and support needed to overcome this life altering situation.

And so that’s how ‘Wheeling Forward’ was created. It was really to help those from lower income backgrounds improve their quality of life. And the way we would generate revenue to support ourselves and to help us, you know, accomplish our objectives and goals was to have an event called ‘Wine on Wheels’. And ‘Wine on Wheels’ was set up every year. It was over 200 wines. Wine professionals from all around the world would come in and pour those wines. And that’s how we would generate all this money and help get people used wheelchairs and whatever it is, help them with scholarship money for, to go back to school.

And ‘Wine on Wheels’ kind of took on its own, you know, kind of personality. And that’ll have more of a focus on food, wine, and in training for people with disabilities that have expressed an interest and a curiosity to want to get into the hospitality industry. And then the other thing that we will be doing is reaching out to other hospitality establishments— restaurants, bars, hotels— and helping them train their staff on better systems on how to deal with people with disabilities and how to encourage more people with disabilities to work at their establishment, but also to come to their establishment to eat and dine and drink and whatever you want.

Janet: That’s great. I love that. I think that that’s a really, kind of wonderful (Yannick: thank you), way to kind of bring everything together and we kind of talked about it earlier, you were trying to explain to me that it’s not just, you got to train the right people, right. (Yannick: yeah) So you got to put everything together.

Yannick: And I always had a dream that I really wanted to have a stronger presence in the hospitality industry where I would see more people with disabilities of all kinds, work. But in order to make that happen, there needed to be that bridge. And I’m hoping that ‘Wine on Wheels’ can finally be that bridge. Not just a New York thing, but a United States thing. And then let it grow across the world. And that’s really my long-term vision. But you know, ‘Wheeling Forward’ is still something that I love and I dream about and will still be supporting and still being involved definitely, but, you know, a lot of my time and energy going forward will be with ‘Wine on Wheels.

Janet: Well, let me know how I can help. (Yannick: thank you). I do want to let our listeners know how to get in touch. I mean, I will also have it on our website. We will have all the links that you’ll ever need and then some, (Yannick: ha-ha) but do you want to do a verbal shout out right now?

Yannick: Yeah. I mean, one: I want to thank you for having me. What a pleasure, what an honor to be on this. But if you want to learn more about ‘Wine on Wheels, you can go on wineonwheels.org. If you want to learn more about ‘Contento’, you can go on contentonyc.com. As for me, you can find me on Instagram @YannickBenjamin. And you can also find ‘Wine on Wheels’ there too: @wineonwheelsNYC; and then also @ContentoNYC as well, all on Instagram. and I look forward to, to seeing all of you and it would be great to have you all come down to ‘Contento’ and have a great time.

Janet: Yannick, we can’t wait I’m telling you. Carolyn and I talk about that often. (Yannick: ha ha) So, we’ve got to get over a couple of things obviously. But anyways, we really appreciate you taking the time today. (Yannick: thank you). We’re kind of finished here unless there is something that you felt like we didn’t cover, that designers might want to know?

Yannick: No, this was a wonderful conversation and it went by so fast and I thank you very much for all your great questions.

Janet: And all of this stuff you can find on InclusiveDesigners.com – I love the, your philosophy and I love the forward thinking and, the heart behind it, which is kind of great. I mean, think about it, I mean, like if you could actually create some of those spaces that also help people because so many times when people have some sort of disability, they’re also impoverished, so (Yannick: yeah, yeah, that’s a problem), it’s a problem. So and then to create more skills and then like you said, Rome, wasn’t built in a day, (Yannick: laughs) but I feel like we shouldn’t be a little bit further along, but…

Yannick: Yeah, we’re definitely behind, for sure.

Janet: We’re definitely behind, but people like you are making a difference.

Yannick: Thank you for everything. Thank you, Janet. Thank you, Carolyn, for this opportunity.

Janet: Thank you so much for being here and being on our podcast, Inclusive Designers.

(Music / Show Outro)

OUTRO:

Janet: I really love the concept of Roots, Respect, and Restore. That is going to be my new mantra, Carolyn.

Carolyn: That’s right after ‘Stay Well and Stay Well Informed’ of course.

Janet: Well, Yannick thought of everything when creating this restaurant, not only just the physical space, like lowering the bar counters and having things being barrier-free, but such key touches like the adaptive utensils and the menus for the visually impaired.

Carolyn: He said they really appreciate what it takes for someone living with a disability to get to a restaurant, and they strive to ensure every patron can relax and enjoy it while they are there.

Janet: What a wonderful guy! I can’t wait to go down to New York and visit him, taste some of that good food, sample some of those nice wines that he mentioned, and of course, see the space in person!

Carolyn: I think we seriously need a road trip… but if you are in NYC please look up ‘Contento’ in East Harlem and visit for both the food, and to check out a good example of a restaurant designed with the ADA in mind! For now, we will post photos to inspire you on our website.

Janet: And we will also share the links for Yannick, Contento, Wheeling Forward, Wine on Wheels and of course, a few other things that were mentioned along the way during this discussion… all that on our website at: inclusivedesigners.com…

Carolyn: That’s: inclusivedesigners.com…

Janet: Thank you to Yannick Benjamin of Contento. And thank you all as well for listening.

Carolyn: Along with all the regular places you get your podcasts, you can also find us on YouTube as, you guessed it, Inclusive Designers Podcast. And of course, if you like what you hear, feel free to go to our website and hit that Patreon button, or the link to our GoFundMe Page.

Janet: And as our motto says: ’Stay Well…and Stay Well Informed’.  Thank you as always for stopping by.

Carolyn: Yes, thanks again.

Janet: We’ll see you next time.

(Music up & out.)

Designing For: Beauty and the Brain (Season 2, Episode 4) Read More »

Designing For: Beauty and the Brain

The ‘Neuroscience of Architecture’ can sound like a daunting subject to tackle, much less try to understand. Inclusive Designers Podcast interviews the forward-thinking architect Don Ruggles who explains this idea in an easy-to-understand way that will make you re-think everything you thought you knew about designing buildings. The question of ‘what is beauty anyway?’ inspired him to write his book ‘Beauty, Neuroscience & Architecture’ which then blossomed into a new Documentary, ‘Built Beautiful: A Love Story of Neuroscience and Architecture’.  

Whether you are a professional architect, designer, or a student studying to become one, this will challenge your perception of beauty (and wellness) in relation to architecture. And even if you are not in the profession, IDP promises that you will come away from this interview with a new insight into how we see our towns, neighborhoods and homes. You’ll learn just what beauty is and why it can make us feel good when we see it.

Guests:

J. Davis Harte, PhD is an applied and theoretical designer, advisor and educator. Her career focus is on trauma-sensitive design in child-centered settings, merging the knowledge of trauma-informed practices with the latest on evidence-based design. The people who benefit from the spaces she informs are often misunderstood and marginalized.

J. Davis Harte, PhD

Don Ruggles, AIA, NCARB, ICAA, ANFA, is president of Ruggles Mabe Studio, a boutique architecture and interior design firm based in Colorado. The firm is dedicated to the idea that beauty can improve the lives of its clients.

The film is predicated on his first book, “Beauty, Neuroscience & Architecture: Timeless Patterns & Their Impact on Our Well-Being,” which investigates how timeless forms and patterns in architecture and design affect our health and well-being.

~ Don Ruggles, AIA, Ruggles Mabe, Denver CO, @druggles

“Beauty is free. Why wouldn’t we use it?”    ~ Piero Ferrucci (in Beauty and the Soul)

– Documentary:

“Built Beautiful, An Architecture & Neuroscience Love Story With Narration by Martha Stewart” suggests a new, urgent effort is needed to refocus the direction of design to include the quality of beauty as a fundamental, overarching theme in two of man’s most important fields — the built and artistic environments.

Upcoming Screenings

– Books:

• Beauty, Neuroscience & Architecture, Timeless Patterns & Their Impact on our Well-Being, by Don Ruggles investigates how timeless forms and patterns in architecture and design affect our health and well-being.

• Urban Experience and Design, Edited by Justin B. Hollander and Ann Sussman describes how unconscious responses to stimuli, outside our conscious awareness, direct our experience of the built environment and govern human behavior in our surroundings.

“Beauty is in the Brain of the Beholder” ~ Anjan Chatterjee

– References:

• Ann Sussman – HAPI Human Architecture and Planning Institute

• ANFA – Academy of Neuroscience For Architecture

• Anjan Chatterjee, The Astetic Brain: How We Evolved to Desire Beauty and Enjoy Art

• Piero Ferrucci, Beauty and the Soul

• Ary Goldberger

• Andrea Palladio

• Biophilia – The biophilia hypothesis suggests that humans possess an innate tendency to seek connections with nature and other forms of life. Edward O. Wilson introduced and popularized the hypothesis in his book, Biophilia. He defines biophilia as “the urge to affiliate with other forms of life”. – Wikipedia

• 14 Patterns of Biophilic Design- Terrapin

• Fractal– A fractal is a pattern that the laws of nature repeat at different scales. Examples are everywhere in the forest. Trees are natural fractals, patterns that repeat smaller and smaller copies of themselves to create the biodiversity of a forest.

• DHH Program at the BAC

• Concept of ‘Fight, Flight, or Freeze’

• Sympathetic, Para-sympathetic & Homeostasis – “In fact homeostatic balance between sympathetic and   parasympathetic responses is important to our wellbeing and healthy nervous system” Don Ruggles

• Mesolimbic Reward Pathway– The mesolimbic reward pathway is implicated in stress-related psychiatric disorders and is a potential target of plasticity underlying the stress resistance produced by repeated voluntary exercise.

• Dr. Kendalls ‘Pareidolia’: Definition – the tendency to perceive a specific, often meaningful image in a random or ambiguous visual pattern.

Forbidden City

Designing for: Beauty and the Brain

(Music 1/ Show Intro)

Janet: In this series we will be discussing specific examples of design techniques that make a positive difference for people living with certain human conditions.

Carolyn: The more a designer understands the client and or the community the more effective and respectful the design will be.

Janet: Welcome to Inclusive Designers Podcast, I am your host, Janet Roche

Carolyn: and I am your moderator, Carolyn Robbins…

Janet: Carolyn, I am so excited for this show. I’m interviewing someone I am truly a fan of… Today’s guest is Don Ruggles— architect, designer, thinker, author, and now movie maker!

Carolyn: I’m looking forward to it too. I’m already up to speed, especially since you bought me his book!

Janet: I did. And?

Carolyn: Loved it, and the film too! And I can’t wait for him to share his thoughts on ‘Neuroscience and Design’ with all of our listeners.

Janet: Agreed! His book, “Beauty, Neuroscience and Architecture – Timeless Patterns & Their Impact on our Well-being” is a must have for any designer and architect’s library. It’s beautifully done, it’s smart… AND, it has big glossy pictures!

Carolyn: And now the book has inspired a documentary too. It’s called: “Built Beautiful, An Architecture and Neuroscience Love Story”

Carolyn: – and it’s narrated by none other than

Carolyn & Janet: Martha Stewart!

Janet: It just makes sense that Martha Stewart would be interested in a topic of beauty and architecture. And what a topic it is. if you’re interested in architecture, are an architect, a lover of architecture, thinking of becoming a designer, or are a designer— this is going to either open your mind to the future of architectural design, or will challenge you as a designer as to what you thought you already knew.

Carolyn: We should also mention that we asked Dr J. Davis Harte to join us today to co-host this episode.

Janet: And now, I think we should let folks hear from Don Ruggles himself.

Carolyn: I think we should,

Janet: and he can explain the impact of architecture on our brains, biology and well-being, so much better than I can…

Carolyn: So, if you ever wondered why we think something is beautiful and what role the brain has to do with it, stay tuned.…

Janet: Here is our interview with Don Ruggles,

Carolyn: and it’s co-hosted by Janet and Dr J. Davis Harte…

(Music 2 – Interview)

Janet: Hi, and welcome to Inclusive Designers podcast. I’m your host, Janet Roche and we’ve got an exciting show for you today. We’re going to be interviewing Don Ruggles of Ruggles Mabe Studio in Colorado. He is also on the board of Human Architecture and Planning Institute, otherwise known as HAPI in Boston; and Building Beautiful Institute in Italy.

And today I also have a great surprise guest. We’ve got Davis Hart back again. For those of you who listen to the show, she’s going to be my cohost for this particular episode. And I’m very excited to have both of them on.

And the reason why we are interviewing Don Ruggles is because he came up with a wonderful book, which I highly I recommend, and it is called ‘Beautiful Neuroscience and Architecture’. And for those of you who like picture books, this is a great, beautiful book. It’s got a lot of beautiful pictures in it.

And as a result of this beautiful book, which I highly recommend you go get it Amazon, or your local bookstore I suppose, it inspired a beautiful and well-done film for architects, and architect students, and people who love architecture. It’s called ‘Built Beautiful’ and I’ve seen it three times and each time I get a little something more out of it. I am so excited to welcome Don, Don Ruggles. Thank you so much for showing up today.

Don: Oh, thank you. I’m really honored to be with you all. Thanks so much.

Janet: Thank you. I mean, as you well know, I love the book, and I’ve become a big fan so much so that I also got your chapter in the book that Ann Sussman and Justin Hollander wrote called ‘Urban Experience and Design’, and your chapter in this was great. It was called ‘Bonding with Beauty’, and you wrote that also with John Boak, did I pronounce that correct?

Don: Yes, that is correct.

Janet: Alright, I just wanted to show you how excited I am and I have done my homework. I might mess up a lot of names, but at the end of the day, you can tell your family I’m a big fan. So, but anyways, let’s jump right on in…

Maybe we should start with the book and move our way into the movie. How did this all start? Like, what was your impetus for writing the book?

Don: Well, this is a rather long story. I’ll try to shorten it the very best I can. In 2009 here in Denver, I was asked to give a talk for a fundraising project at Children’s Hospital. And I was given the topic of ‘Timeless Design’ and I was frankly having a hard time kind of putting together a successful concept for the talk. And my wife recommended that I look into the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture as she had just heard an interview on National Public Radio with John Eberhart who was the head of what was then really a newly formed organization, the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture.

So I did go to their website and what I found there was really quite remarkable. Well, I gave the talk and it was very well-received and part of the talk dealt with the notion of ‘what is beauty’ and how does it tie into timeless design? Well, the questions that I had during the question-and-answer period at the end of the talk were mostly centered on this idea of beauty.

So, that led to another talk at the University of Colorado College of Architecture and Planning. And similarly, I’ve got more questions about beauty than any other part of the talk. I thought well I should do some more research on this. So I did, and it led to another talk and another and another and more research and more talks.

Well, fast forward to, let’s see 2016, and I was asked to give a talk at the University of Oklahoma and they have a great publishing arm called the ‘University of Oklahoma Press’. And I managed to get a meeting with them. And I discussed this whole idea about beauty and how it affects architecture and possibly our health and well-being.

Well, when I left that meeting, I had a commitment from OU Press to back my book. So then I thought, ‘Oh gosh, I’ve got to go write a book’. And my wife has written a number of books in special education. So I knew what that process was like. And basically, I locked myself in my home office for two years doing research and working on a book. And I had graphic designers and editors and proofreaders and, you know, a team of people that supported me. So it wasn’t just a singular effort. But, after a couple of years we had a book that was in print and we issued it for sale.

Well, as part of the book promotion, that led to my giving a talk in Denver. And at the end of that talk somebody from Rocky Mountain Public Broadcasting came up to me and said, ‘we love this idea. We think that you should make a movie of this, and if you do, we’ll put it on Rocky Mountain PBS’. And that led to a long-extended effort to create a movie which I guess we’ll talk more about today. So that, in as short as I can make this story, there it is— a small idea that turned into a rather large concept now that is starting to have an impact internationally.

Janet: Right. And we were just talking about how it’s really been embraced overseas, and maybe not so much here, which we, maybe we could at some point address, but I think overall, this concept of beauty really resonated with a lot of people. I know it obviously did with me, it did with Davis and it did even my co-producer Carolyn. So it really struck me. And, and what’s interesting to me is I’m now looking at buildings differently, which I think is a real testament to the hard work that you have done.

So when you went into this process, you looked into the neuroscience and I thought it was interesting. You talk a lot about the fact that we’re sort of innately looking at faces and that’s that somehow shaped your narrative. Do you want to talk a little bit about that?

Don: Well, most, most definitely the facial pattern is one of a series of patterns that humans are born with, it’s literally part of our genetic programming, that there are certain patterns that we seek throughout our life. And when we talk about beauty, there’s really two kinds of beauty. There’s the innate, genetically programmed patterns that I just referenced. And then also there’s the sense of beauty that you acquire as you experience the world, as you tune your brain to modify how you see the world around you to fit with your own personal preferences. So you may have, you know, preference for your grandmother’s knitted blanket and it’s beautiful to you, but not to anybody else. That’s acquired beauty. But innate beauty would be more something like recognizing the importance of facial patterns or fractals, which are patterns in nature, or what Anjan Chatterjee refers to as natural kinds, which are patterns that come from the natural environment, or geometry from the human body.

And all those patterns— facial pattern, natural kinds, fractals and human body geometry— we evolved with over millions of years. So, you know, it’s literally, we’re born and it’s imbued in our DNA. And that’s really significant because what you can start to realize from that is that these patterns are constant throughout mankind or humankind rather. And the old phrase that… “beauty is in the eye of beholder”.  And I think what neuroscience has found is in fact, “beauty is in the brain of the beholder” and our brains are more similar than they are different. Thus, beauty becomes a common reaction that all human beings share.

And that’s Anjan Chatterjee, who is a famous neuroscientist here in the United States. That’s a quote from Anjan. So, it’s fascinating to realize that we all hold these common values about what beauty might be. And when you realize that, then there are other results from that, that you realize that it’s a common, physical reaction that we have, and it’s pretty amazing. The philosopher and neuro psychologist, Pierro Ferruchi, who’s from Italy obviously by the name, he’s quoted as saying, “Beauty is free. Why wouldn’t we use it?” And that’s an important statement because there are many, many benefits from a beauty reaction and maybe today we’ll have time to get into some of those as it’s really, really fascinating.

Janet: Yeah. I, I do want to ask you and it was one of my questions was, how important do you think fractals are? I teach biophilia and we kind of touch on them. Should I be maybe a little more focused on them in terms of biophilia and design and the built environment?

Don: Well, a fractal is a repeating pattern at basically every scale. So you look at a pattern in a plant, and if you have a microscope and you look at, you know, a certain portion of the plant up close, and then you blow that up at successively larger scales and you’ll find repeating patterns. And that’s really the essence of a fractal and it can continue to grow, irregardless of what the scale is.

So what Ari Goldberger has theorized and he’s a research scientist and professor at Harvard is that fractals allow the human brain to zoom in on something very small and then zoom back out at a larger scale. So that in and out of changing of scales, it’s actually good for our brain. It’s exercising your brain and creating new neurological pathways that are really important for the health and well-being of your brain. And so, Dr. Goldberger has theorized that this is actually a really important neurological benefit. And fractals are happening in trees and in grasses and in flowers and rocks. I know that sounds strange, but…

Janet: It’s true… and isn’t it like the arguably the most complex fractal is the brain itself, but there’s something to that. Am I correct, or am I completely off base?

Don: Well, the billions of connections in our brains probably could not have happened without a fractalized arrangement. It’s in the small space that we have within our cranium, it’s theorized that all of the billions of connections that are there just simply could not have happened without a fractalized concept or how our brains evolved. (Janet: Right) So it’s actually quite important.

Janet: Yeah.  Well…

Davis: Oh…

Janet: Go ahead, I was just going to say, we’re going to let Davis see if she wants to jump in here…

Davis: Thanks, Janet. Yeah, I, there’s just, I just adore just sitting and listening to Don speak about it because it is something you’ve been speaking and thinking deeply about for, you know, 11 years now. So that’s gives you some amount of, you know, it’s always the expert who’s asking the questions, you don’t necessarily have to have the answers. But, as the Director of the Design for Human Health program at the Boston Architectural College, I’m always very interested in how we can demonstrate the importance of connecting health and well-being to architecture. And then further from that, how this understanding of our shared neuroscience of our brains and bodies. How does that relate?

Don: …that question is to me?

Davis: Yes Don. (laughs)

Don: How is health and well-being connected with neuroscience? That’s a deep subject. I would say, human beings seek pleasure or survival. And those are really the two categories that as our nervous system collects information at 11-million bits of information per second, it’s far more than we can consciously process. So the first thing that has to happen is that as those bits of information are coming in, they’re filtered and it’s, they’re put into two different buckets, if you will, ‘survival’ and ‘pleasure’.

Now, the survival bucket is quite a bit larger than the pleasure bucket. They’re both important, but because the brain’s looking out for your survival. Ann Sussman describes our brains as the greatest alarm system ever invented by man. So anyway, survival is the strongest input. So survival and pleasure are linked with two really important feelings that we have and that’s ‘approach’ and ‘avoid’.

So you are willing to approach a pleasurable situation and you want to avoid a survival situation. Well that applies to architecture. So if you’re perceiving a pattern that creates an avoid reaction, then you’re not likely to embrace it and, or approach it. And if you’re perceiving a pattern that generates a pleasure pattern, then you’ll feel free to approach it. Now, we’re talking about our autonomic nervous system here, which is dealing with basically below consciousness level, subliminal, if you will.

And most of this separation that I talk about, the inputs going to survival or pleasure buckets, that autonomic nervous system is splitting a very important chain of neurological inputs. And it’s known as parasympathetic, which is pleasurable; and sympathetic, which is not so pleasurable, more on the survival side.

And there’s some really important health qualities attached to sympathetic inputs and parasympathetic inputs. So, if on the sympathetic side, it’s stress inducing, it’s protecting you and it’s raising your heart rate and putting cortisol and adrenaline into your system. And that’s part of the survival reactions known as ‘fight or flight’, no doubt you’d heard of that. Parasympathetic is about rest and relaxation. So that lowers your heart rate and has a number of really positive health benefits to us, including lowering your stress component.

So, parasympathetic is really about feeling well, and sympathetic is about survival and essentially a stress reaction. Well stress, as you know, is not good for us. And what we’re starting to understand is that some architectural forms create a sympathetic reaction and some architectural forms create a parasympathetic reaction. And there’s growing, growing body of research that is looking into this. And this is a game changer for architecture.

Davis: Absolutely. In the book you have, this is a quote you’ve written… “a sense of awe, beauty and wonderment can be achieved appealing to the sympathetic. The sympathetic event has an important place in health and psyche yet it needs to be supported by the parasympathetic as well. In fact, homeostatic balance between sympathetic and parasympathetic responses is important to our well-being and healthy nervous system.”

And I just want to applaud you for having that in your book, because if one did not have a little bit of a sense of stress and cortisol in the morning, we would choose to not rise out of bed. So that’s an important consideration. I think you have some thoughts to share with us about that.

Don: Thanks for bringing that up. So, stress in short bursts are actually good for us. It makes us stronger.  And it prepares us for battle when, if and when we need that to be, you know, our reaction that should be close at hand, so that that’s important, but it has to be in short burst, and then parasympathetic is more extended.

And the homeostatic balance is the short burst of stress versus the elongated, rest and relaxation. So short burst of, of survival and longer burst of just rest and relaxation. And, you know, that’s important for interior designers to be cognizant of, because if you’re designing a room that’s all about just rest and relaxation, calm colors, and calm furniture, then it’s likely to be boring.

And please, you know, note, I don’t want any designers to take offense to that, (Janet: you don’t want any emails) but if you were to add a red painting in or a colorful vase, anything that, you know, that sparks curiosity and a little bit of uniqueness and interest, that is starting to create the balance.

And scientists think that the balance needs to be about one-seventh. So one-seventh, you know, stress, excitement, interest, uniqueness versus six-sevenths of calmness and serenity and understandable patterns. And that’s, interestingly enough, why you often see like fashion shows and famous old buildings, and then really colorful, unique fashions because the two create a really great homeostatic balance. Uniqueness and colorful versus really calm restful, kind of understandable geometry as a background. That’s a good recipe for interior designers, by the way.

Janet: Right, I think people get a little surprised with the 14-patterns of biophilia from Terrapin, I believe it is. They talk about having areas to explore and areas to, to have refuge, but also areas for excitement and wonder. And it’s something that you wouldn’t expect because you think to yourself, like a nice garden, for example, you know, just has some flowers and it looks pretty right. But at the end of the day, It’s more so than that.

I just want to remind everybody that a lot of the information will be on our website, InclusiveDesigners.com, and also, it is all in the movie and I, again, I want everybody to kind of watch it. But that whole idea of parasympathetic and sympathetic is an interesting juxtaposition. And I like the idea of homeostasis, but you’ve also talked a lot about the three-by-three. Maybe you can talk a little bit about what that is and what that means. And again, it’s also in the movie and on our website.

Don: So, one of the patterns that humankind is born looking for and Sigmund Freud you know theorized that when a baby is born, it has to find a face to survive. Literally the child without the care of another human being is not going to survive. And scientists have found that there’s a pattern that’s made up of three dark spots, two eyes and a mouth surrounded by a dark area, which would be the hairline and the outline of a chin.

And so a child is, has a very rudimentary sense of vision when firstborn, very fuzzy, if you will. And so they’re looking for this pattern of two eyes on top and a darker spot on bottom. And scientists have shown that babies will lock in on that pattern as soon as they see it. But they’ve tried and they’ve taken note cards with the three dots and turned it upside down and the child will not even engage with it.

So there’s a genetic basis for this understanding that children are looking for this pattern. Well, if you take that pattern and you overlay a grid on it, it’s actually a three-by-three grid. And one of the important development things that happens with a child, not only is they’re looking for that facial pattern, but they’re also trying to engage in empathy. So all of the kicking and smiling and you know, the general back and forth that happens between mother and child is a really important part of the child’s development. And the child has to have that. And so this too is part of the genetic code.

So the empathy that happens between child and mother, and it goes on for day after day, week after week, for years, is setting up a response in the child that is positive. When they see the mother and they end up being fed and they’re laughing, and it’s just a general uplifting sense of life, that sensibility stays with us for the rest of our lives.

And when we see the pattern, which is a three-by-three pattern, when we see that in building facades and elevations, then we empathically transfer the sense of feeling good into the building elevation. And that’s why we call it beautiful, because it’s triggering the mesolimbic reward pathway in our midbrain that releases the feel-good hormones. And so we automatically feel good, same as when the child was engaged with the mother or the father, but automatically releases these hormones. It’s a feel-good hormone. Then that can result in the statement, ‘It’s beautiful’. So ‘it’s beautiful’ is actually often a physical response to seeing a pattern in a building elevation.

And if you look at some of our most acclaimed and honored buildings worldwide— so the ‘Forbidden City’ in China, famous temples in Japan, pyramids in Central America, the Pantheon, the Parthenon, St Peter’s, St John’s, I mean, over and over, the US Capitol, the White House— I mean all of these are revered and protected buildings, and the reason they are is because they’re made up of the same pattern.

Andrea Palladio was famous for using this pattern and his buildings are some of the most revered ever built. So the point here is, is that this three-by-three pattern is actually a fundamental reaction that all human beings have, and it results from being raised by your parents and the reactions that we learn when we’re being nurtured.

Janet: Right. Well, I don’t know if Davis has any questions for you, but this is a good segue into the movie, but Davis, do you have any questions you want to piggyback on some of that?

Davis: Yes. I have always many enthusiastic thoughts around this topic. It’s so, so fun to speak about, but I do want to understand and learn how the process of taking your thoughts and ideas, putting them in a book and transforming it into a movie. And how this, how this is a message that you’re optimistic that the general public will be able to pick up and understand. Maybe we can just start it there from a more broad points for the movie.

Don: When I first found the Academy of Neuroscience and I started reading the scientific papers, I thought, well this is amazing information, but it’s probably too dense for an architect to, you know, spend hours trying to sort through it. So I tried to write the book in a manner that was readable. In fact, the book is laid out with pictures so that an architect can just look at the pictures and the graphics and pretty much understand the message. And the famous saying is ‘architects look at books, they don’t read them’. And I’m an architect, so I can verify that that’s true. (Janet: laughs).

Anyway, so we tried to bring the same sensibility to the movie, that there are important aspects here in the movie that we’re trying to convey to the general public. And it’s not just a movie for architects. Really it’s for everybody. Because the simple matter is, the way you arrange pictures on a wall around a fireplace can make a difference in how you feel, whether you feel a sense of, ‘I don’t really understand this’ to ‘this feels really good and I understand it’. And so, if we thought, if we could bring some of that to the general public, it actually, you know, might help some people out. And particularly with COVID now, and everybody’s spending so much time in their homes, if we could give them the vehicle to, you know, rearrange their furniture that might feel more comfortable.

And I’ll tell you a story, I took some people through a house we had designed and I gave them a copy of my book. They went back to their condo and rearranged all their furniture and they said “this place has never felt so good. And thank you so much for letting us understand why we needed to do this and, and why it feels so good.” So this is not, you know, too difficult to understand once you embrace the general concepts. So we tried to make the movie so it would appeal to a broad audience and actually maybe give them some clues as to what they could do with their home interior or even their home exterior.

Janet: Right. But even if, how they looked in their built environment and also their office spaces, Right? And then also, their towns and their cities, or, you know, their neighborhoods, and they can also realize why they’re attracted to certain buildings. I think that’s a very kind of simple and almost fundamental concept. So you’re starting to understand the world around you. I actually wrote down at some point that this is a movie, not for just architects and architects’ students, but it’s for everybody to understand a little bit more.

And to your point, we were already spending 90% of our time indoors anyways. And then now like with COVID, if we can make our own home environment a little bit more beautiful, it just does us well. Which kind of brings into some of the questions that you had asked us to think about as well. And so, right off the top is what are the importance for connecting health and well-being to architecture. So, what, do you want to jump into that?

Don: Well, I, this is about health and well-being. And you know, I didn’t set out to write about health and well-being. But what I did realize was that- I was president of the Institute of Classical Architecture and Art, Rocky Mountain chapter for nine years. I’ve also been on the board of advisors for the University of Colorado, College of Architecture and Planning for about that same period. And Colorado is primarily a modernist school, and ICA is very much a traditionalist-based organization.

And I would listen to the arguments at one board meeting from the traditionalist, and I would listen to the counter arguments from the modernist at the university. And I thought, well, this is really just a war of words. And what could the possible common ground be here. And I realized that it was health and well-being, that both groups definitely were concerned with the health and well-being of their clients. And so that comes down to a fundamental of, if you use certain patterns, you can create a health and well-being reaction. And if you don’t, you’re likely to create a stress reaction, which is not helpful.

And it doesn’t matter whether it’s contemporary or traditional. If you use the right patterns in the right way, you’re going to generate that reaction. And I think that’s the fundamental message here. It’s not about style. It’s about using the patterns that generate these reactions. And that’s a game changer. And I didn’t invent all this, so it’s not all attributed to me. There are many groups around the country and in Europe that are looking into this,

Janet: I have to jump in there. You did coin a phrase though. Did you not? Neuro archi…

Don: -chitectology,

Janet: -ology, yes.

Don: Yes. That’s trying to weave together of course, architecture and biology and psychology and neuroscience into, you know, one kind of fundamental umbrella idea that we can use concepts from all of those disciplines to help inform the decisions that we’re going to make as architects and designers that hopefully support our client’s health and well-being,

Davis: Well, you’re a very effective messenger because you are able to demonstrate the nuance. It’s simple. It’s something that anybody can sort of pick up these ideas and say, ‘Oh, sure, this makes sense, you know, I’m going towards pleasure and I’m avoiding things that threaten my survival’. Yet, there’s this other, how you define beauty as having a bit of the acquired, the cultural and the experience.

So each set of patterns is something that any designer or architect could learn about and understand and recognize and say, ‘we already know this, we’re already doing this’, but what maybe isn’t happening is the reverting to a code and sticking to the let’s just follow the bare minimum here. Well, in reality, we need to have that ability to understand and read and know our clientele and the future users of the space to make sure that we’re prioritizing the patterns or prioritizing the layers in that sort of a way. So, is that something that prompts any thoughts in you that you want to expand on Don?

Don: Well, so what we’ve found in our practice, and we primarily do residential work, so we get a lot of feedback from our clients, is that we have strong moments of centering and symmetry, and then we’ll let it relax some. And so you might see the centered idea and then you go around a corner and, as you’re going around the corner, it’s not centered, an asymmetric design, and then you come upon another centered moment and then, you know, the same sequence happens again, and again, and again. So it’s, present the centered idea and then relax, and then represent it and relax.

So, we found that that creates the curiosity that is such an important component. Davis, you mentioned that a minute ago, curiosity and awe. So curiosity is a very important component to our lives. So you don’t want everything to be the same. Not every wall should be centered and a three-by-three pattern. But if you can have a strong three by three pattern on every wall in every room, then I think you’d go a long way towards creating a sense of relaxation and comprehension by your clients.

Because again, as a baby, we’re desperate to find that pattern when we’re born. And if we don’t, it’s panic, because we’re not going to survive. Well that emotion stays with us forever. And that’s where the stress reaction starts to come in. We’re looking for this three-by-three pattern every day, all day long, it’s facial pattern. And it’s not just acquiring a facial pattern from a person walking down the sidewalk. But when we look at buildings too, the portion of your brain that processes facial patterns is also the same portion of the brain that processes facades. And that’s an incredible realization. And Dr. Kendalls at Colombia, Nobel prize winning neuroscientist, has talked a lot about Pareidolia, which is, if we don’t find the pattern, then we might fill it in, because we’re so desperate to try to acquire the pattern. So, anyway, that’s… I don’t remember what the question is now, but…

Janet: (laughs)

Davis: I tend to ask open-ended questions. So, I’ll turn it over to Janet for something…

Janet: it’s all good – So, and now I know I have shared this story with you. Your wonderful producer/director Mariel, she did a lot of filming with your film in my old stomping ground which was Brooklyn Heights. And one of the buildings that she actually said was beautiful is right near where one of the buildings as a kid we would avoid. And I don’t know why that was. You know, I never understood why. And we would cross the street because there was the lovely building that she actually showed. And so, it kind of goes back to your point that these things are just innate within us. And it’s not something that you can maybe even put your finger on. But I think that this film will really kind of help to explain that to people, which I think will be a game changer.

Don: Great. Fantastic. So what would be uncomfortable is an architectural pattern, a building an elevation, that is so unusual that it was causing an avoidance reaction. And you know, in the movie I say something like, everybody probably has buildings that they like to go out of their way not to encounter. Conversely, I think everybody has buildings that they in fact go out of their way to encounter. And that has to do with this subliminal approach and avoidance reaction. And it’s just so, you know, subtle that… there’s a building here in Denver that my wife and I used to go to and we finally had just said, ‘you know, I don’t feel like going there anymore’. Well, that’s the avoidance reaction. There’s something in that building that is making us feel uncomfortable. And everybody has that. You just acknowledge it, that that’s probably a sympathetic reaction that you’re having to a pattern that you don’t understand, or you’re looking for a pattern that you can’t find.

Janet: Right, so, we’ve talked a little bit about who should be watching this movie and why, but can we do a little more of a deeper dig into that because I think that that’s important. One of the things the take-away pieces is how important neuroscience is and this movie explains all that. But how do we as designers learn from that, but not get distracted by that? I know there was a lot of discussion about that towards the end of the movie but is there a way to be able to be innovative, creative, and deal with neuroscience. Can you expand a little bit on that?

Don: Well, yes, I will. Neuroscience is a new tool for us to help still make creative inventive decisions. And the important thing here is to realize that some architectural spaces may create stress. It’s an evolving topic and neuroscience is a tool it’s not the end all be all. And I think Dr. Chatterjee and the movie states that very clearly. It’s still a decision to be made by the architect or the designer.

Davis: Thanks for mentioning that Don about neuroscience being a new or evolving tool that can be tapped into and used as a means to generate and remodel spaces and places for people to have a way to facilitate their health and well-being. I mean, that’s, this is one of the big takeaways from the movie ‘Built Beautiful’, and from the work you’ve been doing.

You know, if a person isn’t using all of their available attention, attentional focus to search out and make meaning of the space that they’re in, then they can attend more to their own internal state, how they’re feeling, the person that they’re with, how they’re doing and find a more of a harmonious experience in that space. However, conversely, if they’re in a space that’s demanding a lot of interpretation and their senses are very busy trying to make sense of ‘up and down’ and ‘left and right’ and ‘where to go’ and what have you, then it will immediately trigger that ‘fight or flight’ mode that many are chronically stuck in anyway. And so the window of tolerance can be expanded by the space that we have.

So I don’t necessarily have a question from what I’m saying. I’m just kind of countering what you said with more, you know, approval and evidence, and meaning of why this needs to get into peoples, into everybody’s understanding. So, fantastic.

Janet: We’re just such a big believer of this movie. Again, I’ve seen it three times. I’ve read your book. I’ve read, you know, the, the other chapters that you’ve had like I said, in Ann Sussman’s book as well. And I liked what you said at the end of the movie was the idea of that neuroscience of architecture, right? Not neuroscience and architecture. And I thought that that was a really important and powerful moment because it’s part of the game changer that you’re a part of this emerging field and it is also, it’s things that we’re still learning, but it’s such an important part. I mean, again, you know, just looking at building facades and how people react to them. it’s really amazing.

Don: Well, I, I must say, it is just an emerging field of interest here and recently I, in just the past two weeks, I’ve been in touch with groups from Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Canada, Johns Hopkins University, ANFA, Kansas State University, Oklahoma University and Colorado University. I mean, and everybody is talking about this. So this is a course correction. I’m not the head of this, there are many, many people that are working very hard on it.

Janet: I have to interrupt, the movie though breaks it down in bite size pieces that is so, again, it’s not just for architects, it’s not, not for the architects that have been out in the field for 20, 40 years. It’s not just for the students. I mean, this is also for people to understand. I would argue that this is a groundbreaking movie within our field.

Don: Well, I’ve had comments to that effect that,

Janet: oh, so I’m not original on my thoughts, okay, thank you, Don. (laughs).

Don: I’ve had comments that have said, they think, you know, and I’m being modest about this, but people have said that it was really important, so we’re glad to be part of the movement.

Janet: Yeah. We think it’s really important and we really appreciate you stopping by today and giving us your time. And I implore all of my Inclusive Designer Podcast listeners and architects and architect students, and people who love architecture, and if you just want to walk around in your neighborhood and understand it a little bit better to really think about looking out for the movie, an incredible movie. The actual title for the movie is ‘Built Beautiful: An Architecture and Neuroscience Love Story’, that is the full name of the movie. I think that that kind of sums it up right there.

Also again, the book is ‘Beauty, Neuroscience and Architecture, Timeless Patterns and Their Impact on Our Well-Being’. And again, all of this information and a lot of it, we put it on our website, InclusiveDesigners.com and we’ll have links to Don. So you can get in touch with Don or Davis and, and even how to buy the book. Don, thank you so much for being here.

We wish you continued success with the movie. We really, all of us here and, I’m maybe speak a little bit for Davis, we really appreciate the work that you’ve done. Again, I think that this as groundbreaking work. And I’m so excited that you agreed to be here today and to share your information and share your knowledge with, I would argue, the rest of the world.

Don: Thank you. It’s been an honor.

Janet: Oh, thank you. Davis, you want to throw a, throw a goodbye?

Davis: Sure thing. Well, thank you so much for, you know, we’re all picking up this message from wherever it came from and we’re finding each other and we’re creating a really strong interdisciplinary team of people who are out to have more heartfelt spaces, spaces that feel better, you know, for people who can understand themselves more and more. So it’s a real honor and a privilege to be here and to speak about the film ‘Built Beautiful’. We’re big fans. Thank you so much. Thanks Don.

Don: Thank you.

Music / Show Outro:

Janet: I suspect that Don Ruggles will be one of those architects that will make a name for himself, not only for his beautiful architectural work, but for his role in bringing this really important research to light.

Carolyn: And we just learned that the old saying that ‘beauty is in the EYE of the beholder’ should really be… that ‘beauty is in the BRAIN of the beholder’.

Janet: Right? Especially as we unlock more and more mysteries about our brains and how we see beauty. And although we think that it’s subjective, it really isn’t, as there are some basic innate patterns that we all seek. I dare you not to try to find faces in almost every building you encounter. As a designer, I knew this to be a concept, but I’m now seeing faces everywhere, and it’s pretty exciting.

Carolyn: I agree, I’m doing it too, and it’s pretty incredible. Don pointed out that “There are probably buildings that you go out of your way to avoid, and others you go out of your way to see.”

Janet: He also said, “architecture has ramifications on our health, and we need to understand- what are the forms, ideas, repetitive patterns that support proper health and well-being.”

You know this is an important topic for anyone even remotely touching this profession. It highlights the emerging relationship between the built environment and human psychology. If you have a passion for design and how and why we think some things are beautiful, keep an eye out for the documentary. And for more immediate gratification, check out his book.

Carolyn: The movie also touched upon some other new concepts like using Virtual and Augmented Reality to provide new insights, methods, and information to enrich the design process.

Janet: And also, how neuroscience is being used in designing for people with eating disorders or dementia… it’s fascinating. The movie really captures it and helps us to understand the importance of this kind of work.

Carolyn: We should really think about doing episodes on these two new areas of research.

Janet: That’s a great idea, and… I might have been thinking the same thing. Meanwhile, I‘m telling everyone who is listening, you’ve got to go find this movie and check out his book.

Carolyn: We will of course have links to Don, the book, the movie, Davis, and a few other things that were mentioned along the way during this discussion… they’ll all be on our website at: inclusivedesigners.com…

Janet: That’s: inclusivedesigners.com…

Carolyn: We also want to thank you, our podcast listeners, for listening. And now, in case you didn’t know, along with all the regular places you get your podcasts, you can also find us on YouTube. Just go to YouTube and look up Inclusive Designers Podcast. And of course, if you like what you hear, feel free to go to our website and hit that Patreon Button, or to the link for our new GoFundMe Page.

Janet: And don’t forget our motto, as we like to say here on Inclusive Designers Podcast: ’Stay Well…and Stay Well Informed’. See you next time. And thank you as always for stopping by.

Carolyn: Yes, thanks again.

(Music up)

Trauma Informed Design: Transforming Correctional Design for Justice (Season 2, Episode 3) Read More »

What is the state of disability in America today, and what does this mean to Inclusive Designers… especially in this time of Covid?

IDP sits down with Valerie Fletcher, Executive Director of the Institute for Human Centered Design (IHCD) in Boston, MA. She is an advocate and world think leader in all things Inclusive Design. Her research focuses on integrated social and environmentally sustainable solutions for multifamily housing, healthcare, culture, workplaces, and the public realm.

We discuss with Valerie the research paper and documentary she recently completed for the IHCD called The Changing Reality of Poverty in America: 2020. The project reexamines the experience of disability in America and shines a light on the stories of those all too often left behind. It also includes some eye-opening conclusions for Inclusive Designers.

Other topics include: ADA, toxic environments, Poverty in America, definitions of disability, functional limitations, neo-diversity and, of course, Inclusive Design.

Guest:

Valerie Fletcher is Executive Director of the Institute for Human Centered Design (IHCD). She writes, lectures and works internationally. She currently oversees projects including the development of a new national website on accessibility and inclusive design in cultural facilities for the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as a wide range of consultation and design services to public and private entities in the US and globally.

Valerie’s career has been divided between design and public mental health. She was the former Deputy Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health, and has been a Special Advisor on Inclusive Design to the Open Society Institute and the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs.  She is the North American representative on the Board of the International Association for Universal Design (IAUD) in Japan.

“Inaction is a civil rights exclusion”

~ Valerie Fletcher, https://humancentereddesign.org

• IHCD Documentary; Research Paper

– Documentary Team:

Matthew Brault, MPP; PJ Moynihan, Digital Eyes Film; Dr. Erica Walker, HPHS

“Not everything that is faced can be changed,

but nothing can be changed until it is faced”

~James Baldwin- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Baldwin

– References:

• ADA Wheelchair Stats-There are currently about 2.7 million wheelchair users in the US

• ADL Defined: Activities Daily Living

• CDC COVID + Disabilities

• Department of Youth Services

• Fetal Alcohol Syndrome

• Flint Michagan Water Crisis

• Functional Limitation

• Mobility Stats

• Native Americans (Indigenous People) + Poverty

• The BAC Design for Human Health program (DHH)

• WELL Building Standard

Designing for: The Changing Reality of Disability in America

(Music 1/ Show Intro)

Janet: In this series we will be discussing specific examples of design techniques that make a positive difference for people living with certain human conditions.

Carolyn: The more a designer understands the client and or the community the more effective and respectful the design will be.

Janet: Welcome to Inclusive Designers Podcast, I am your host, Janet Roche

Carolyn: and I am your moderator, Carolyn Robbins…

Janet: In this episode we will be talking to the amazing Valerie Fletcher, who is, among other things, the Executive Director of the ‘Institute for Human Centered Design’ in Boston, Massachusetts.

Carolyn: Valerie Fletcher has built her career advocating for the disabled. Her research focuses on integrated social and environmentally sustainable solutions for multifamily housing, healthcare, culture, workplaces, and the public realm.

Janet: We originally wanted to invite Valerie to talk about the 30th anniversary of the ADA, which is the American Disabilities Act, about its past, present and future, and we did… but Valerie being Valerie, there was a lot more to discuss than that.

Carolyn: Recently, Valerie and the IHCD released a new documentary video, and paper, called The Changing Reality of Disability in America: 2020. It highlights the correlation between poverty and disabilities.

Janet: We discuss everything from neo-diversity, poverty in America, functional limitations, the definition of handicapped, our toxic environments, and finally how COVID is changing the face of Inclusive Design.

Carolyn: We also explore how design is a civil right, and look at the role the infamous ISO, or International Standards Organization, plays in refining the standards to keep up with our ever-changing world.

Janet Here is our interview with Valerie Fletcher…

(Music 2 – Interview)

Janet: Hi and welcome to Inclusive Designers Podcast. I’m your host, Janet Roche. I’m here today, along with my moderator, Carolyn Robbins, and otherwise known as my producer, aficionado, expert, and what have you. And today we have somebody really special on the show. Somebody who I deeply admire, and someone who is such a champion for people who are very underserved in our built environment. Valerie Fletcher. Welcome, Valerie.

Valerie: Thank you Janet, thrilled to be here.

Janet: Thank you for so much for coming. Now, I want to talk about the paper you just did as well as the video, “Changing Reality of Disability in America, 2020” but first I want to tell you, how you told me about this. This was last year. This is a true story, and it was that, we were at a cocktail party for Mahesh Dass, who was just being, had his in vesture that morning and you had your audience around you. And so I waited patiently behind everybody to, like get in to see you. I kept trying to like create eye contact, like don’t leave, don’t leave.

And so finally, you know, everybody had had their piece of you and then they left, and you were gracious enough to hang out and talk to me. And I said, you know, “Hey, I’m going to be doing a podcast, you want to come on?” And you’re like, “I’m really busy. I’ve got this thing. We’ve just got a grant. We have this incredible grant to talk about, poverty and how it affects disability. And it’s incredible. And it’s going to be just like this incredible thing.” And I’m like, ‘oh my God’, you know, just when I think I’ve caught up to you, like you’re already in some other stratosphere of thinking and forward thinking and advocacy work. So that’s where I first heard about this project that you’ve now just finished. Do you want to talk a little bit about it?

Valerie: Sure. You know, one of the hard things about anybody who runs a design firm, and I’m fortunate enough to run a nonprofit design and educational, a global nonprofit. So we’re very fortunate on so many fronts, but we look a lot like a firm because we do consulting and design services as our bread and butter, mission driven.

And one of the hardest things to do—and I know you understand this because you’re a designer making your living doing what you know how to do—there is no time to do something that you don’t have any money for. You are so client driven that things that are eating away at you that need attention and time never get to life.

So I was very, very lucky that, the widow and two sons of a colleague who died very suddenly, in Vermont actually, 20 years ago, Alan Myers, who was a professor of public health and very much an early pioneer in looking at the role of the built environment in public health.

Janet: I hadn’t heard about him before I read this program that you wrote. And I was like, ‘dang’. I was like, ‘where was he, you know, going through school’, like he was amazing. Right?

Valerie: Yeah.

Janet: He was an amazing, you know, fore thinker of some of these issues.

Valerie: Absolutely. Absolutely. And he was, you know, he was really on a quest, but he died. He died very suddenly. And so there was a fund set up, a Memorial fund. And his wife and sons asked, what would I do if I had some resources from the fund? And it was, it was such an extraordinary opportunity, you know, going and begging federal government or a big foundation, you know, to pursue something like this would not be likely. And there was a real public health angle to it. So extra good fortune that we were able to pursue this with private funding. And it was really out born out of faith that we would align with Alan’s values and that’s how it was born. Of course, it was born before COVID so…

Janet: Right,

Valerie: before the world changed …

Janet: or in some of these social justice issues had come about…

Valerie: totally.

Janet: So, I mean, again, you got to remember when we, you and I were talking about this a year ago…

Valerie: It was December…

Janet: Right, it was, to me, I was, it was mind-blowing. I mean, I knew it, but it was mind blowing and, but now I watch all this stuff going down and I think like, bam, like Valerie was on it again.

Valerie: (laugh) so I was able to put a team together and that team included; a documentary filmmaker, who is our producer for our video on and webcast kind of work. PJ Moynihan from Digital Eyes Film. And he was all over it right away, which was very lucky, and was a core member of the team. It wasn’t like the video was, you know, the documentary was over here and the everything else was over here.

And then two other core players and one of them is a woman with a Doctorate from the Harvard School of Public Health, the Chan School, and that is Dr. Erica Walker. And we knew Erica because many years ago she was an intern of ours and got bitten by notions of the role of the environment, how significant the role the environment is. And she went on to earn a doctorate in public health, and this was an opportunity to bring her in. She actually has done most of her research work, her Doctorate, was in issues of noise. Noise that you cannot control as something that is a risk to mental and physical health. So really interesting work.

So Erica was part of the team. PJ was part of the team and the other key member of the team was a man named Matthew Brault. So Matt is a former point man on disability at US Census. So really deep experience and knowledge. And there just aren’t that many people. And I had already had the experience of working with Matt over a number of years. He’s been a consultant to us in really helping us to tell the story about— ‘what are the demographics? What is the fact of the experience of a functional limitation in America today?’— because I knew it was fundamentally different than people presumed.

You know as a designer, what do you know? You know you’re primarily oriented towards the standards of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the codes of the state you’re working in. And what do those codes and standards look at primarily? They look at wheelchair users. Because the challenge on the built environment is so obvious that people have come to think that disability and wheelchair use are very nearly synonymous.

Janet: And that is the only disability that people have, right? I mean, I mean, it’s something like, it’s crazy, like what, 10-percent of all Americans have some sort of, or use some sort of wheelchair or was it…

Valerie: oh no, it’s, so 26-percent of the adult population have a disability, only 1.4-percent. use wheeled mobility, ten times that number have difficulty walking. And we had known all of that because Matt has been working with us on demographics for New England. It’s been extremely valuable. We run the new England ADA center and it’s been extremely helpful for us to be able to disseminate, this is who we’re really talking about.

And, and more often than not, designers are looking at the standards, but they aren’t looking at the regulations. You know, the regulations are narrative, but the regulations are central to understanding the intent of the ADA. So the regulations define who has rights and who has responsibilities. And architect, licensed professionals in particular, have a very special type of responsibility and the client has a responsibility.

So that’s where that’s captured. And over the years, the standards have changed some and you know, there was new new requirements in 2010. It was modified and made coherent, at least to a large extent, with four other sets of standards so that they could talk to each other, which hadn’t been possible before.

So there’d been a period of time at the very beginning when the ADA was passed in 1990. And at that point there was a number of 43-million adult Americans have a disability. Nobody can really back into that number now, but that was what was used in 1990. It was literally in the legislation. And then the courts began to hear cases relative to rights under the ADA and shrank the definition, quite aggressively shrank the definition of who has protections under the law.

And then in 2008 Congress passed something called the ADA Amendments Act. And that actually restored the original intent of who is covered. And it looked at the original concern for Activities of Daily Living, you know, ADLs, which you’re probably familiar with, but it also looked at bodily functions. So we were for the first time understanding that our systems, whether that is, you know, the GI tract or, you know, any number of systems, the cardiac system and the reproductive system, all of that is actually a system that if it is impaired, makes you eligible to be covered under the ADA.

So it had expanded quite substantially, back to the original intent and by 2020, we’re looking at 61-million American adults are people with disabilities. Overwhelmingly that number of people have conditions that you cannot see, that the majority of them acquired those conditions over time, that congenital limitations are still happening, still real, but they are a small percentage of the total.

Janet: I know we’ve had a side conversation about this, but the use of the universal wheelchair, and people tend to think that that is what disability is. And people have a hard time when they see people maybe with a placard, having a disability and using one of the, like those parking spaces. Somebody told me that they had had some sort of bypass surgery and they were able to get like a placard just to help them with the ADLs. They couldn’t walk very far. And some woman came over and yelled at him because he wasn’t in a wheelchair. And, he was angry as all get up. And I said, look, I said, here’s the good news is, is that at least she was trying to care. She was misinformed, but she was trying to care for the people who she believed really needed it. I think people are starting to understand it a little bit better, but I think something like the universal sign for a wheelchair is a little misleading for people with disabilities

Valerie: it’s one of those things where, shorthand language is hard to create and it’s hard to sustain. So I don’t know that that’s going to go anywhere. And it’s been reinforced a number of times. It’s been around for, we’re probably closing in on 70 years now. It’s not new. So I think that that’s part of the issue. and I think it’s that people are still unfamiliar with it.

So when, when we’re looking at these things, we’ve really tried to break it out. So people understand, what are the reasons for disability today? So that was the big question, we wanted to do that. And we also knew that there was a pattern in which inequity in America was a big driver of disability, but there was nothing really telling that story.

Janet: and this paper and this video completely covers that I think is pretty groundbreaking. So I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt…

Valerie: no, so part of it, part of it is that- it’s telling the story about the truth of what constitutes disability. Which doesn’t mean, that you have to self-identify as a person with a disability. You know, you’re being counted, whether you would ever adopt an identity of that. And I think for people who acquire a functional limitation over time, it’s really hard to say, now I’m a person with a disability, you know, you’re somewhere on the continuum. And some day you wake up and say, Oh, I’ve now arrived, I’m a person with a disability. And that, that is unusual. It does not happen. And for many people it’s why would I do that? What is the advantage for me?

Janet: Right.

Valerie: And when people think about disability, it’s very hard to sort of grapple with what does that mean when you’re talking in many cases about, degenerative conditions or conditions, chronic health conditions talking about the enormous issue of the brain and all of the conditions there.

Janet: Right. And that the whole brain part is just beginning to get explored.

Valerie: Yeah. So. Let me take a second to talk about this issue of ‘where does the brain fit’. So those of us who swim in this water every day know that for children in youth, say age 3 to 22, the norm for many, many years has been the dominant reason for a disability is brain-based. That is the norm among children and youth.

If you look at higher ed, and of course, we in Boston look at higher ed and, you know, understand, disability services is something that some people knock on the door because they need an accommodation. They have to now self-identify. It’s not the school’s responsibility, it’s your responsibility to ask. So we know overarchingly, we are looking at people who are served by disability services are overwhelmingly people with brain-based conditions. And you’re very different from one another. so, it might be mental health. It might be learning disabilities, which is the largest single category.

Janet: …count me into that one.

Valerie: You’re not special Janet…

Janet: no, I’m not…

Valerie: It could be developmental, intellectual limitations and different kinds of developmental delays. I think everybody is hyper aware of conditions like neuro diversity, which includes, but isn’t limited to autism. I mean, that’s become such a big topic. And then, the other issues that we don’t think about as often, brain injury.

Janet: Yeah.

Valerie: Really big deal. If you’ve ever known anybody with brain injury, it’s powerfully, imposing on essentially your entire self, your sense of self, your ability to function at every level. And then the rising tide of neurological conditions, which are, you know, growing very rapidly.

So at this point in time, we’re looking at mobility limitations remain the number one reason for disability among adults, but it’s mostly difficulty walking. So it’s walking distance and climbing stairs. And what is that about? That’s partly about the fact that we’ve got an aging population. We’re a lot older than we were – (Janet: We’re a lot older…) – 30 years ago as a nation…

Janet: …was it 2030 more people in the history of the world will be over the age of 65 than ever…

Valerie: Yes. And, in that case, it’s a lot of people who have conditions that they have acquired over time that get a lot worse after 65. But the brain, that whole spectrum, whether we call it cognition, it’s very difficult. There’s no standard terminology, is number two and rapidly rising, it’s not only the child and youth story, it’s the adult story. So really important that we recognize that this is now something that is impossible for us to ignore and to recognize it as legitimate. in the first days of the ADA, when the legislation was in progress, there was a big, a big challenge of getting parody between mental and physical reasons for disability.

It worked, it worked, but that was groundbreaking work. It was then reinforced years later at the international level by two things. One was The World Health Organization and the international classification of function, disability, and health. It took ten years to do it, to get global buy-in because you can’t, you can’t issue a policy without the member nations agreeing to it.

So the World Health Organization established this new measure of how do we think about these things? So they said, looking at global aging, they said ‘now functional limitation is a universal human phenomenon’. We are all going to get there unless we’re unlucky enough to die young. So functional limitation will be part of our life experience.

The second thing they talked about, again, was parody between mental and physical reasons for a functional limitation. But for those of us who design, the really big idea was that, so those things are now universal for all of us, we will all experience it at some point. It’s not about them over there in a fixed condition, it’s about the human condition.

But this notion of context was about a person with a functional limitation, interacts with the environment and they understood the context. You know, context and environment are kind of equal and the environment is the physical. And in 2001, when we were not quite so technology addicted, they still knew it was communication, information, policy and the all-important attitude.

So that holistic idea of the environment really was what they were talking about when it was contextual. What’s the deal here. So it means the intersection of a person and the environment, which means that those of us that create environments create the human context, you know, the social art of design, have an opportunity to minimize the negative and amplify the strengths of people with functional limitations. So that they construed disability as a negative that occurs at that intersection of the person and the environment.

Janet: Right. In terms of talking to designers, this is something that really sometimes irks me. Because I am a designer for human health and this is what I do and I have other designers, other architects that call me up and go— “Hey, I’m doing X, Y, and Z of a project, and I’m basically calling you to figure out how to get around the codes and how to try to figure out like, how can I pass my test without putting it in any of the work?” – and I thought it would be great if you could talk a little to designers out there that look at that as, they look at it as they try to tick the boxes. You know what I mean? Like, they’re just trying to tick the boxes. They’re not trying to come up with some real clever design ideas.

Valerie: I think it’s legitimate to acknowledge that one of the things about the challenge for designers is that they have requirements at the state level. You know, you’ve got to hit those, and at the federal level and on certain kinds of environments, it’s, it’s a nightmare. It’s very difficult in Massachusetts in particular and especially around housing. So that is, I want to legitimize the frustration. It’s fair to complain that it’s very, very complex.

We’re currently doing a little brochure on inclusive multi-family housing, but we’re doing it with illustrations that, excruciating detail in terms of this meets fair housing, this meets ADA, this meets MAAB, and this is what Inclusive Design looks like. So part of the problem is that sometimes when it gets too complex, you have essentially gutted any potential that somebody is going to be interested in doing more, in having this sense of what I can do for people.

Janet: Right. I think that’s where designers do have frustrations, the complexity of everything.

Valerie: yeah.

Janet: I mean, I don’t think there’s any dubious kind of thought process going through this, or they’re trying to kind of get away with things. I think it is, they’re just trying to figure it out. What do you say to those critics? I, we kind of touched on it a little bit, but what do you say to those critics that say, well, you know, it’s too difficult. We’re being kind of like a nanny state. Do you have any, I’m sure you have some choice words. (laughs)

Valerie: Private homes can be built any way you want, and people do generally do that though it’s often wise to think about the people with the most money who can pay the most to designers to invest in their homes, tend not to be young. And it’s often wise to give them features that will serve them well over time.

Janet: Right.

Valerie: No one wants to retrofit a fabulous home because it doesn’t actually work for them for very long. So just, just a thought. I think part of it is the way we teach people. Janet, I have a big problem with the way we teach people, that too often, issues of accessibility are taught with the plumbing and the electrical code. So if you are trained to think, just tell me what I have to do, that is where you go. You don’t think of it as part of the design process. You don’t think about, I’m designing for people. You know, I’m, this is really about the extraordinary role of designers in having a big influence on our lives.

I’d have to say, not to, not to impugn the electrical code and the plumbing code, but I never look at those without having to look them up. You know, I don’t ever incorporate those. But I think this notion of design for people, and I think part of what we’re frequently talking about is that this is, it’s not code, you know, at its core, the Americans with Disabilities Act is not code. It’s civil rights and civil rights in America, how to extend to design if you were going to make it work for people with disabilities, because design was such a factor. If functional limitation is the, you know, is really the definition. Then if you didn’t design things differently, you were excluding people. So inaction is a civil rights exclusion. So this was the first place in the world that actually incorporated design as a civil and a human right. And that has made an enormous difference across the world.

Janet: yeah, it’s so true. And, for myself. So, full disclosure, Valerie Fletcher and myself, we know each other from the Boston Architectural College in Boston and she’s on the board of trustees. And, she knows though, that I went through a particular program, which was one of the first of its kind in the United States, called Design for Human Health. And we look at designing in a more empathetic approach, and you talk about this in your paper, we look at the psychological, the sociological and the biological parts of the built environment and it’s, it’s an important piece.

And, and it’s funny, because it kind of goes back to the whole wheelchair conversation, is that when I would tell people that ‘this is what I was doing, and I’m very excited about it, I can’t wait to start helping teach other people about this’, and people were like, what do you need to know about people in wheelchairs? Like, try to explain to them that we’re looking at the environment as a whole on how it affects not only the person, but even how they looked at it in terms of society. And that goes back to the whole economics justice piece of what you’re talking about. Right?

Valerie: And, and I think even if you, you unpack the requirements relative to people who use wheelchairs and, you know, we’ve created all kinds of changes in the society because of, you know, the ability to use wheeled mobility to get around. I mean, when I was a kid, we didn’t have wheeled suitcases, you know, that had wheels, you lifted them up…

Janet: I may have dragged one through Europe. Yeah.

Valerie: Right, right. I mean, think of the fabulous array of wheeled mobility for babies and toddlers, you know, all of that is facilitated by level everything. You know that you can get around, you can make your way down on the street without thinking about it. And that’s been great. I mean, even if you get to bikes and scooters, you know, it’s made life much easier for bikes and scooters.

And there’s been many benefits for the very large population of people with difficulty walking. Also, it’s not literal wheeled mobility usage, but the standards are even limited there because they’re really focused on people with good upper body strength, which is not the story for everybody. If you know anybody with quadriplegia or MS or ALS, they are, they are using a chair with a far more restricted level of function than somebody with a paraplegic condition where they have good upper body strength. So the reach ranges are all presumed to be paraplegia.

So it’s important for us to, and to think about the polio epidemic was very significant in the development of early standards because it was so, such a devastating impact on the world population. And certainly, in the United States, many of the people who were leaders in the original movement were people who grew up with, as polio survivors. And so, you know, their needs were paramount and very obvious.

Janet: Right. They definitely were. And I have some friends whose parents, were really affected by the polio. So that brings up a good question: How do you see COVID changing the landscape in terms of design, in terms of people with disabilities. You know, because I think we’re going to have, I think it’s something that doesn’t get talked about about much and I might be wrong, but just as— I’m not a doctor, I just play one on my little podcast— it seems to be, there’s not a lot of discussion around the idea that there’s a lot of people that have had a lot of long-term effects with Covid and I know that it’s starting to come out. I did see a couple of articles actually just recently, but can you speak a little bit to, what do you see how that’s going to change things…

Valerie: I totally agree Janet, that, that it’s going to make a big difference. And I think that your work in Design for Human Health notions of fit well, wellbeing, the WELL building standards, all of that is more relevant than ever. And you may know people who, are suddenly very clearly people who aren’t going back to the workplace at all, because they have a condition they’ve never talked about before, because they didn’t have to, they didn’t need an accommodation. And we talk about that in the paper. So one of the conditions that is grown exponentially are people with auto-immune disease.

Janet: Right, because I mean, then there’s those invisible diseases and invisible conditions, I have a lot of friends who have all sorts of these invisible conditions.

Valerie: And we don’t know what causes them. But we do know that there’s a vulnerability related to the environment. We just don’t know exactly what it is, but certainly in a time of pandemic, they are not going back to the office or back to school. And I think part of the COVID response is that we need to think differently about how we are designing homes for one thing.

And there’s not much question that we have not got solutions in hand, and it’s much easier for people who have, you know, a private home where they can, ideally a private home where they can also spend some money, but this is not an easy situation for the thousands and thousands of Bostonians for example who are living in our 8-to-10 story rather new apartment buildings where there’s an emphasis on shared space, tiny living spaces. And if you’ve got roommates in that tiny living space, you are severely hampered in your ability to work remotely at home anyway.

And I think when we look at, we look at learning at home and kids— kids in public housing, kids in large families, kids in poor neighborhoods— are disadvantaged in a, in an obvious way. You know, it’s difficult for them to have any private space. They might share a bedroom with two or three other people. Parking yourself at the kitchen table is probably going to be noisy and disruptive. And your parent is going to hear everything you say. My brother’s a college professor who said, you know, the saddest thing for him was the first generation to college kids who, when they were in your classroom could for the first time in their lives, say things they’d never said before. Well, those aren’t going to be said at the kitchen table, if your mother’s behind you, (Janet: Interesting). You know, that transformation isn’t going to happen.

Janet: Wow.

Valerie: And I think just to, just to add to the complexity of ‘how do we do this remote work, remote learning and remote medicine’. if you are not a privileged person with a lot of private space. I mean, who wants to visit their doctor in a shared room or in a communal living room,

Janet: And then that also gets, you know, gets into the whole HIPAA conversation. (Valerie: Yeah.) It’s, it’s a, it’s kind of incredible. I mean, yeah, I think we kind of understand at least for people with poverty, what they’re going through, but do you have any future…

Valerie: We actually think that there’s an opportunity because of Covid. So the pandemic…

Janet: right.

Valerie: … is an opportunity that we haven’t seen in multiple generations to really look hard at, what’s not working anyway. And what do we need to change in order to have a future where I think the whole issue of equity becomes a much bigger story. And I think the Black Lives Matter movement coming on the heels of COVID and the killings, you know, brought a level of a coherent sense of shared understanding that hasn’t really been there. We’re all living the same experience of a global pandemic and in America, and actually shared around the world, this notion of outrage at racism. And I think inequity in America is something that can be demonstrated, can be documented. We got the data to prove that we are in worse shape than we were 60 years ago in terms of equity, in terms of equality of opportunity. And it has alarming ramifications for us, if nothing changes.

Janet: Right.

Valerie: And I think what, what we have now, however frightening our current situation, given a lack of resources, you know, just at— at the individual level, at the community level, at the city and the state level— you know, resources are a source of tremendous anxiety because we don’t know how things are going to be managed. But I think we have to recognize that this is our best chance at taking a hard look at how we do things and that we have to figure it out.

Janet: It’s an incredible opportunity. despite the pandemonium that seems to be part of this. It’s kind of like an, an incredible moment in time where we have to, and we have to as designers, we have to start stepping up and, and doing our part.

Valerie: Well, and I think, I think part of what we’ve allowed to happen without talking about it, is we don’t acknowledge what it’s costing us. We don’t acknowledge that at all. So at this point, now we spend more than anybody in the world on healthcare, 3.5-trillion dollars, and 90-percent of that is going to chronic health conditions and mental health conditions, 90-percent.

Janet: So we’re basically putting a bandaid on things. Right? I mean, and, but meanwhile though, there’s like a gusher, right?

Valerie: Well, and we’re doing it at the cost of systemic population health. So the reason we live longer now is because systemic population health was a priority. We invested in public health, which allows us to get past polio, get past smallpox, get past diphtheria, you know the kinds of things that were so dangerous to life in its early years, that for generations, people didn’t even name babies until they survived for 6-months or a year, because it was so risky. So, we’ve lost, we’ve lost the memory of that. And we’ve tied personal care is really where it all goes.

So the amount of money spent in the last couple of years of life for very long lives, you know, enormous investments of money, but we aren’t doing very well on preventive care. We aren’t really looking at some of the systemic issues that are costing everyone a fortune. On the ‘Center for Disease Control’ website, there’s a breakdown for every state and territory of how many people with a disability and what are you spending.

And part of what is so frustrating is that by doing nothing, by not allowing people to be independent, to work, to contribute, to participate, it’s costing money. It’s costing everybody money badly spent, because nobody actually wants to be in that dependent situation. And that’s part of what we’re trying to argue needs to be reversed. And if we’re going to have people contribute, then we’ve got to invest differently in housing and school and work at minimum.

Janet: Right.

Valerie: And certainly healthcare.

Janet: Yeah. again, your, your, your paper and your, your video is called ‘Changing Reality of Disability in America, 2020”. I’ll have it on, my website. And obviously you can go to…

Valerie: you can get the report and access to the documentary film from our website, right in the middle of the homepage. It’s www.humancentereddesign.org … two Ds, centered, and design.

Janet: One of the things when, when you and I met up last year, you did say that, the problems with poverty. And again, as we have an opportunity for change. So as, as designers, we can use some of this information that’s in this report and in the documentary to help support designer’s decisions to make some of these changes. So they can say to their clients or whomever, they could point to that information.

Valerie: We draw out one of the realities that I think is an important integration with notions of social and environmental sustainability marriage. And we use in the documentary, the story of Flint, Michigan, because it’s so well known. So, bad water, triple the rates of learning disabilities among those children. It turns out that the day that we aired the preliminary version of the documentary, there was a giant lawsuit that was won to give 600-million dollars to the children of Flint, Michigan to try to give them the supports that they need, now in at a desperate level, because of the harm caused by bad water.

But the interesting thing, and the heartbreaking thing is that there’s 2600 American cities whose water safety is worse than Flint, Michigan. And those are mostly places with high rates of poverty. People who aren’t poor won’t tolerate that. And it is not a neutral phenomenon. It is a phenomenon that will result in lifelong issues. In most cases, it’s the learning disabilities and the whole variety of where it intersects with the brain. It also tends to cause problems with pregnant women and the children they bear. So life term problems. Bad water, bad air. We didn’t do a specific segment on bad air, but poor neighborhoods in America are besieged by bad quality air.

Janet: Well they are usually places that are closer to like the airports, the ones that are closer to the highways. They’re the ones that are closer to…

Valerie: manufacturing.

Janet: right, right, right…

Valerie: Indian reservations, Native Americans have the highest rates of disability in America, they’re a very small population, just 1-percent now of all Americans. 40-percent of Native Americans have disabilities. And those are environments that are often, there, at least the reservation environment are built over mining sites. So toxic environments and high rates of all kinds of things related to those environmental risks that they live with. So the highest rates are among people, 65 and over and native Americans. And then the highest is among black Americans.

Janet: Right. Yeah, no, I read that in your report. So it was, for me, that was an eye opener. I mean, I think I know a lot of what’s in your report, or to a certain degree, but that was kind of shocking.

Valerie: And in the documentary, we wanted to tell stories because people remember stories much more than they remember data. And we wanted to tell a story around homelessness as another category. So we had the kids in Flint. Homelessness is a phenomenon that, you know, I’ve had the opportunity to be involved in and work on over the years, never adequately. I had a career in public mental health and the intersection of mental health and substance use is a very strong corollary for homelessness.

And the numbers are heartbreaking in terms of the number of people. Once upon a time, people thought that it was related to, we closed state hospitals, the community wasn’t adequate. Most people who are out there now never saw the inside of an inpatient unit. You know, these are people who just have the thinnest connection to support and care. And so the whole behavior health spectrum of substance use and mental health is huge in that community.

We also looked at prisons and jails where, kind of sickening reality of people with disabilities in prisons and jails is a big national story, but not one that is much talked about. So there’s a good project in the state of Washington that’s really looking at this. There’s occasional projects, research projects with individual cities or states, but we still have very poor data. We do know that more than 50-percent of people who have been killed by police are people with disabilities. We do know that extraordinarily high rates in many states, over 50-percent of people in solitary confinement are people with disabilities. And these are people for the most part with the brain-based spectrum. And in some cases, those are things that are misdiagnosed or never diagnosed until they were in prison.

Janet: It was too late, or thought to be too late, because we have an opportunity to still take people who maybe have done something, and we can still rehabilitate and help them. It’s funny that you should say that. We’re going to be doing the next BAC talk is going to be on, ‘Transforming Correctional Design for Justice’. And so we’re going to talk, we’re going to open up that subject because it’s an important subject.

That’s another topic I feel like that people don’t always look at and people could be kind of flip about it, just like they are with the, the wheelchair, right? That’s the disability, people who are in jail while they shouldn’t have done something wrong, I think it’s just kind of flip, you know. Like it’s just, it’s not taking into consideration, all the other aspects and all the other things that seem to kind of go on. And to your point, I mean, it can even be something as like, it’s got the bad of the water, and then you’ve had some sort of trauma in your life and you’re living in poverty and you can’t get a job. And…

Valerie: Well, and, and then there’s things that we don’t diagnose very often, or at least the, the likelihood of a wrong diagnosis is high. Many people of color, including Black Americans, have a generalized behavioral health diagnosis as young people. And I think it is some regularity that that is actually a condition that would more likely be diagnosed as a neuro-diverse condition, perhaps autism, if they were in a more privileged setting. There’s an assumption that it’s a behavioral health issue. So that’s one of the issues.

One of the other issues that we never talk about is Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. which only recently in a federally funded studies, basically saying, ‘gosh, we’re missing a lot of this and misdiagnosing it as something else’. And this is a lifelong condition that happens in utero, you know, it happens, the mother is drinking. And those children have an extraordinarily high likelihood of violence, and we’ve got to start looking at it because if those studies are accurate from the last couple of years, the phenomenon of fetal alcohol syndrome is higher in the population than the phenomenon of autism, which gets so much attention.

Janet: Interesting.

Valerie: There are things you can do, but you need to know what you’re dealing with, and you need to start early. Just like you would with autism, but you, you better know what you’re dealing with. Those are the kinds of things. I mean, not just to, to call out a place that does very good work—and I think you might’ve worked with them at one point Janet early in your career— is the Department of Youth Services here in Massachusetts.

Janet: I did.

Valerie: They’re doing a terrific job with kids with disabilities who are overwhelmingly kids with brain-based conditions. And they’re really trying to figure out how do we address the near universal trauma experience of those kids, and then all the diagnostic issues that will help them to avoid being part of the jail and prison population. You know, how do we give them what they need? So we’re working on a primer for retrofitting some of the DYS facilities. They need some issues to just be compliant, but they really need whatever tools they can come up with to create environments in which those kids restore themselves and get on with their lives instead of just going on a slick track into the adult system and that, you know, they were remarkably committed group of people.

Janet: That’s good to know. for the listeners out there that don’t know, I worked at, as a social worker in Roslindale for juvenile delinquents, and in an incarcerated facility for young boys. And I always, one of the reasons why I think I burned out so quickly was, I felt like we were just holding them until we would put them back into their society, and that majority of them came back. So you knew that we were just prepping them at that point to go to the real prisons and some of them would end up there already when they were 17… 17! Like, if not even 16, because they would get out and they would do something even more horrendous, and people would be like, well, well, you know, we’ll try him as an adult.

Just so we’re clear, I mean, I appreciate the system and it actually, this was early, well, mid to late 80s. So it’s been, a few years, but even at the time we were considered one of the world class leaders in taking care of them. So I’m glad to see that things are starting to change. And again, I think with the pandemic and Black Lives Matter and starting to realize a lot of the social justices out there, we’ve just been sweeping them under the rug for way too long. And so now we have an opportunity to start fixing some of these things.

Valerie: and I think if nothing else, COVID suspended us from some of our habits. It suspended us from being so distracted that you really couldn’t think about much of anything. You know, that every day was just utterly clogged with, you know, one minute to another. And I think, you know, a level of, of segmentation of what people connected to and paid attention to, you know, that notion of constantly tailoring experience and information to what you care about really broke our ability to relate to one another if people aren’t like one another.

You know, that I am not in your small subset of people who, you know, like A, B, C, and D, and that had gotten very extreme very quickly. This is partly the internet. It’s partly, you know, it’s partly Facebook. It’s partly all the social media, and all of the distraction that so characterizes modern life. And I think the pandemic broke that, at least for a while. and I think allowed people to see things in a fresh way, you know, to connect to things that people could recognize, at least some people could recognize, as fact, not as, you know, this truth versus that truth.

Janet: You’re making me really think this is why I love you. So like, how many times would you like look at social media and you know, and it’s like, ”Oh, everybody’s partying, everybody’s having a good time. I’m living this, my fabulous life type of lifestyle” and you kind of forget that there are people out there that are not.

Valerie: And that, you know, there’s only so much bandwidth, there’s so many, so many hours in the day, (Janet: literally) there’s only so much attention. And I think, part of what we have to work with is that some of that’s broken.

And maybe, you know, more things are sort of evolving now to pick that up. But I think, I think it was a chance for people to feel a level of interdependence, at least some people to feel a level of interdependence. I mean, as a nation, the whole idea that we are interdependent upon one another is pretty central to our ability to be what we intend to be, what we claim to be, what we aspire to be. That that interdependence is really this tension between individualism and community, that goes out of balance on a daily basis, maybe, certainly over the course of time.

And this in some ways, because we are in a pandemic, we are vulnerable in a shared way. And it’s an opportunity for us to recognize that. I realize that a lot of people are struggling with that, and they, they see themselves as outside of that. But it’s kind of undeniable that we are interdependent on each other’s behavior. But I think an interdependence that we’re, that we have a stake here that is a shared stake.

And how do we now insert a corrective that basically says stop dismissing those people as no longer part of the scene, no longer part of the story, but that notion that we can create a context that anticipates those truths, those realities, and to design a world that, that makes it possible for people to be fully part of the society. You know, that’s, that’s an opportunity that doesn’t come around a lot.

Janet: Right.

Valerie: I think that I don’t actually long to change the ADA. And part of what we’re really looking at now is the International Standards Organization, the ISO, that Americans unique in the world pay no attention to. We never talk about the ISO. And the ISO is the international organization with representatives from across the world who participate. And here’s, what’s so interesting is that they actually reassess every standard every 5 years. So they are actually taking things out, refining it, adding to it, changing it every 5 years. So there’s a quality of being more timely.

You know and I think we’ve got to be building it through guidelines. I mean, the standards are a floor, but to move towards a much more vibrant and responsive set of guidelines that we can, you know, put out there, we could perpetuate, but that we can assume that we’re constantly evolving. That’s why we’ve changed to Inclusive Design from Universal Design because Universal Design, first of all, doesn’t mean much to people. A lot of people think it’s froth on accessibility and it’s not.

But it’s also, like your podcast, it’s really about a constant process of— “how do we include, who’s left out? How do we think differently now? What do we need to pay attention to?”— It is a dynamic process and that’s what I’m investing in. Believe me, I deal way too much with the federal, extremely slow process, of the federal government in United States. And they’re not paying attention to these things. So, I don’t want them to add more elements that are for too small a slice. When the work we have to do is for the people about whom there are no requirements, there’s no requirements in the ADA or the MAAB, those populations that are the largest populations now are forgotten.

Janet: right?

Valerie: Yeah,

Janet: No, it’s true.

Valerie: But just in thinking about this, there is, part of why we are invested in the constant global conversation is to learn from what others have done. We should not be reinventing the wheel. It, when we look towards the future, part of what we’re looking at is, who’s doing what around the world. We’re really facing very similar issues in trying to make a world in which we’ve really anticipated human diversity appropriately and designed for it.

Janet: Right.

Valerie: One of our efforts is always to know who’s doing current guidelines that are really worth looking at, what’s the ‘International Standards Organization’ doing in terms of a global entity that is, is not letting standards sit in perpetuity, but investigating every set of standards religiously every 5 years and changing them to respond to new information. And that’s what we need to aspire to. Reinventing the wheel is such a waste of time and energy. We’ve got to be looking at the problems we need to understand so we can meet them.

Janet: Right.

Valerie: You know, what we’ve been trying to do is to seize the moment and recognize that there’s an openness to hearing things that are hard to hear. That we can conveniently fail to notice. and all we can do is, begin the conversation. I mean, there’s an enormous amount of work that we need to inform, we want to inform. but we, we kind of opened this effort with a quote from James Baldwin which I think says it all— “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”— he just captured in short phrases, things that matter. And it’s just, you know, that kind of thing. “we can’t fix it, if we don’t know it”. So we’re trying to just talk about shared responsibility here to make life better for everybody. So designers, key roll the plan.

Janet: Valerie Fletcher, thank you so much. I just want to say, I always try to aspire to be just a little bit like you ever day, so…

Valerie: Janet, thank you very much. I really appreciate, your passion for this work, that you call, your, your podcast, Inclusive Designers, we are going to keep in this dialogue for a good long time.

Janet: No, it’s, it’s true. And, I hope to grow up to be just like you at some point…

Valerie: (laughs)

Janet: I got a lot, I still got a lot to learn. Thank you so much.

Valerie: Thank you. Thank you for your time and interest, alright, be well.

Music / Show Outro:

Janet: You know, that James Baldwin quote Valerie uses always gets me.

Carolyn: Yes, and Valerie had a few good quotes herself. I liked when she said, ‘we have to have an openness to hearing things that are hard to hear’… she also said, ‘We can’t fix it if we don’t know it’ … that’s very timely advice that says a lot.

Janet: And how great is she? I think we can classify me as a total fan girl!

Carolyn: She’s very inspiring… I’m a big fan of hers now too.

Janet: You know Carolyn, this is an episode I will want to listen to again because she’s so remarkable. To Valerie’s point… as designers, we have to take these opportunities that COVID has ironically afforded us. And Covid has definitely changed our world. It’s forced us to look at everything from working remote to problems of social inequity. It’s also brought many of the so-called ‘invisible disabilities’ to light.

Carolyn: We definitely covered a lot of ground in this episode… with a focus on what changes may be needed moving forward.

Janet: Overall, as Valerie said, ‘it’s all about how a person with functional limitations interacts with the physical environment, and how we as designers can minimize the negative and amplify the strengths of the people with functional limitations.

Carolyn: To quote Valerie one more time, “Designers— key role the plan”

Janet: So, I’m thinking of making an ‘Inclusive Designers Award’ and I’m going to call it ‘The Valerie Fletcher Award’…

Carolyn: That’s a great idea…

Janet: And I am going give it to myself!

Carolyn: Only if you earn it.

Janet: Fair enough.

Carolyn: But for right now, you can practice your ‘Thank You’ speech.

Janet: Okay! so I’d like to thank my producer, Carolyn Robbins, and my mom and my dad, and, and…

But seriously, Carolyn and I would like to thank Valerie Fletcher for her time, her words of wisdom, knowledge, empathy, compassion, and passion, which we think comes across in this incredible show and we hope you agree.

Carolyn: We do also want to thank you, our podcast listeners, for listening. And now, in case you didn’t know, along with all the regular places you get your podcasts, you can also find us on YouTube. Just go to YouTube and look up Inclusive Designers Podcast. And of course, if you like what you hear, feel free to go and hit that Patreon Button.

Janet: And don’t forget our motto, as we say: ’Stay Well…and Stay Well Informed’. See you next time.

(Music up & out)

“Trauma-Informed Design: Transforming Correctional Design for Justice”

What is the role of Trauma-Informed Design in reforming correctional facilities? With 7.3-million Americans in some level of corrections (prisons, jails, probation or parole), it is clear we are setting up those who are incarcerated to fail. The glaring truth can be seen in recidivism rates of 76.6 percent after 5 years! IDP explores the injustice of racial inequity within correctional design.

IDP’s own Janet Roche leads an expert panel of Christine Cowart (Cowart Trauma Informed Partnership); Jana Belack (PlaceTailor); and Dana McKinney (Gehry Partners) to examine the history and future of corrections design, and and how Trauma-informed Design can be used to reform it.

In this webinar, Inclusive Designers Podcast and the Boston Architectural College (BAC) joined forces to discuss the role of designers in providing safe and sustainable facilities for corrections, with a focus on offering design solutions to social inequities in this environment.

Moderators:

Janet Roche- BAC Alumni Council, BAC Adjunct Instructor & Design for Human Health Graduate; Owner of Janet Roche Designs, LLC, & Host of Inclusive Designers Podcast.  Contact: [email protected]; www.inclusivedesigners.com; plansbyjanet.com

Christine Cowart– Senior Policy Analyst; Trauma-Informed Consultant, Owner of Cowart Trauma-Informed Partnership.  Contact: [email protected]; www.cotipusa.com

Panelists:

Jana Belack, Leed AP BD+C– BAC Adjunct Instructor, Lead Designer PlaceTailor.  Contact: [email protected]

Dana Mckinney, AIA- Architect and Urban Planner, Gehry Patners, LLP, Co-founder: Black in Design Conference; Map the Gap; African American Desin Nexus.  Contact: [email protected], www.danamckinney.com

Agenda:

“Janet: Hi, and welcome to ‘Transforming Correctional Design for Justice Reform’. I’m going to be one of your hosts, Janet Roche. I am part of the class of 2016, and I’ll get into my bio at some point. I’m coming to you right now from the lovely state of Vermont.

I’m honored to be here for the first or what the BAC hopes to be regular inspired talks over the years. And the founding week of the BAC we’re going to showcase all different alumni and students and teachers and special guests about the inspiring work that they’re doing. And that also includes yours truly right now. And we have Jana Belack, who is also an alumni for this particular panel. So I also want to thank the leadership of President Mahesh Dass for, in the office, for coming up with this grand celebration this week.

And we’ll talk a little bit about science and what that means in terms of corrections and corrections design, and justice reform. But we’re going to add a little piece, which is going to be about trauma and what does trauma mean and how does that also affect humans within the built environment and in this particular case in corrections.

So, just want to do a couple little laundry, you know, pieces here. First of all, I have a big old card that says we might be having technical difficulties. So we all recognize that, I think by now, this is the eighth month of going into the pandemic, and we are all very aware that sometimes things don’t go as planned, but we will try to get it remedied as quickly as we can.

But just so you know, it will be taped and it will be put on the BAC website at some point, and then also I will go in, and I’m also the host of Inclusive Designers Podcast, and it will be on our website as well, along with a whole bunch of lists of links. I always say, it’s going to be out by Monday. I’ve done this before and that’s never the case. So look for it maybe in a week or so. So I’m just going to put that on out there as a disclaimer.

Also, I also want to make sure that when we talk about prisons or whether we talk about corrections, we’re talking mostly about prisons and, but there’s a difference between prisons and jails. So I just want to kind of go over really just quickly in a nutshell, jails are really about short term. They’re usually run by local law enforcement and government agencies, and they’re designed to hold people, awaiting trial or are serving some sort of short sentence. Whereas prisons, you got to think of it more in terms of long-term usually operated by state government or federal bureau of prisons, otherwise BOP in case that comes up. It’s usually serious crimes, felony felonies. They also have a, the difference between minimum, medium and maximum and security, types of facilities in these buildings.

And it was interesting, just a little side piece and we can roll back into this at some point, I was just trying to see if I could get a little more of a well-defined, well, just real good, better definition of prisons and jails. And, what I found though was as, I found some sort of quote, that was defining them and they literally said they go, “prisons, were designed to be an unpleasant experience”. So we will circle back with that particular thought as well. And I think that that really kind of sums it up.

We’re also going to be really kind of talking about adult prisons. We’re not talking about juvenile. Although a lot of the statistics are kind of, there’s not a lot of studies, and there’s a lot more nuances with juveniles versus, adult correction facilities. So keep that in mind. That’s also on the card.

So I wanted to tell you a little bit about myself. And a little bit about my journey, both getting to the BAC and to some degree, and, and also how this particular program came to be. So I own my own company, Janet Roche Designs, and I am also the host of Inclusive Designers Podcast with my co-producer Carolyn Robbins who’s on this call. And I’m also the co-founder of Trauma Informed Design Initiative, with the BAC’s very own newly minted director of Design for Human Health program at the BAC, probably one of the smarter moves the BAC has moved with, Dr. J Davis Hart. So that’s a little bit about myself. I got my Master of Design Study in Design for Human Health in around 2016, although as Eliza will attest, there was a little controversy this afternoon about when I actually graduated, I do have an actual diploma. I can show that to you. But I also teach Biophilia. I’ve taught a few other classes, but primarily I’ve been teaching Biophilia, which in case you don’t know is the innate attraction to nature. And I think it’s an important piece to mention just because it is in its assets, it’s about restorative environments, and how we can also put into the built environment. So we might thread that in at some point for the conversation.

So back in June, Eliza Wilson had this fabulous idea. Let’s do a whole day of talks. And so I asked, Dr. J Davis Hart to come be my co-host for that talk. And we discussed, we did a piece on reopening schools after COVID and sort of the effects of what trauma will kind of present itself and how we can, as designers can help minimize that and have more successful outcomes. So it was a, a well-received talk. And so, Eliza, myself, and I can’t remember who else was in the room, I do know the other, one other person that was in the room, that was Rand Lemley who is the co-chair of the BAC’s alumni council and also an instructor who actually works with Jana Belack on Corrections. And so he said, Hey, why don’t we do a piece on correction and without thinking about it, I really had a moment where, it was very unlike me, I jumped at the chance. And it was so, it was really so unlike me, I, I couldn’t get over how aggressive I was about wanting to do this particular piece. I, I dare say it was like, ‘Ooh, ooh, ooh, me, it’s mine. It’s mine. It’s mine. It’s mine. I want this, I want this piece’. So Rand, forgive me if I ran you over, but I really wanted to do this. Then I started driving in my car a couple of days later, and I thought to myself, why did I do that?

Why did I get so like, so passionate about wanting to do this piece? And lo and behold, I had actually forgotten in my previous life, and this is not some sort of weird karma thing. It was a long time ago. I was a social worker and I worked, in an incarcerated facility in Boston for juvenile delinquents. It was a full blown, locked down environment for juvenile delinquents. And I lasted about, well, 1 year of my internship and 2 years thereafter. And I, I just got so frustrated. And I felt like we weren’t really, even though Boston was, it was so incredible about being really forward thinking at the time, again, this was a while ago. But it was just, it was too hard. It was just too hard because it really wasn’t restorative. We were, I felt like we were just holding them until we moved them into, the adult prison system. And I really was upset by that. And then fast forward, I was in the DHH program and I remember very specifically as to where I was, and we were talking about the importance of light and air and the whole program of Designing for Human Health is about just that. It’s about human health. And I remember kept thinking, what about the prisons? What about the prisons? Because when I was in, when I was working with the juvenile delinquents, we used to do part of that program. Some of you might remember it, it was called ‘Scared Straight’.

And so we would take the juvenile delinquents and we would bring them into the adult prison system. And I don’t remember the prisoners yelling at them, which was sort of what was the norm, but they kind of talked to them and told them how, you know, like, don’t end up here. Little side note, even though that particular type of work got a lot of accolades in the late, it started in the late 70s and worked its way through the 80s. Go figure it, it didn’t work. And again, that’s a lot about trauma and again, it was forward-thinking for its time, but it just, it’s not something that kind of works.

So at some point, when I started to think about what I was doing at the DHH program and realizing somewhere in the back of my mind, I’m like, I really want to do something, I really want to do something along those lines, I’m passionate about that. But first I also wanted to do a lot of work with the Adaptive Sports program. And this is sort of my lead in as to how I go and introduce, Christine Cowart who I met in the Vermont Adaptive Skiing Sports program. So without further ado, I have Christine, if you can go and pop on, that would be great.

Christine: I’m very excited to be part of this talk today. Thanks for having me, Janet.

Janet: Thank you so much, Christine. So Christine, Christine is going to be my co-host today and I couldn’t think of a better person to do this with. Without, before I get into her biography, let her do her, her thing. I met her through the Vermont Adaptive ski program and, they were doing a piece on trauma informed, just trauma informed, right? It was trauma informed therapy. And I said to myself, I already know this. So, really unlike me. I know I keep saying that, but I just sat in the back. And I thought to myself, it was a great way for me to be like, show myself and then get out while, while, you know, she had a nice little, I’m sure she had a nice presentation to get out. Not only did I find myself inching on up the, the seats because she broke it down in such great, in a great way, in a fabulous way. She knows the story better, I probably tell it all the time. I might’ve followed her out into the parking lot. And I was like, we’re going to do a lot of bunch of things together, and I think she thought I was out of my mind. But here we are with the second piece that we’re doing it for the BAC and I couldn’t be more thrilled that you’re my co-host for this particular piece. So let me introduce you again. She’s my co-host. She’s a trauma informed consultant and founder for Cowart Trauma Informed Partnership, and is the senior policy analyst here in Vermont. So welcome Christine.

Christine: Thank you.

Janet: It’s been quite the journey. We started this journey in June and it was pushed back. And it was pushed back and now we’re here, which actually this is fabulous. And again, we couldn’t thank the BAC more for being so proactive and also taking a bit of a chance on our programming and Christine, you and I we’ve talked to all different types. Our first few rounds, we went through, we talked to different designers and you and I knew where we wanted to go. And a lot of the traditional designers that were designing prisons and stuff thought it was a little radical. I don’t know how else to put that. And we had some designers back out and literally had moral dilemmas about knowing what we were doing was right, but not wanting to have, not wanting to bite the hand that feeds them, correct?

Christine: Oh, absolutely. We ran into a lot of people saying, ‘I agree with what you’re going to say. And I can’t say that because it would jeopardize my career or whatever’, and I’m glad that we have the platform today to make this case. Most of my career has focused on the criminal justice system and services to families and children. Over the last decade, there’s a new understanding of trauma and how it impacts a person biologically. These are very real physical changes that happen that affect a person and as a result, affect their behavior and the behavior is what we see. And so, this has been woven in, in all sorts of other applications. You see it in healthcare, you see it in education and social services. We really need to change our approach to how we’re thinking about corrections.

And yeah, it’s new and it’s scary for a lot of people, but I’m so glad for the panel that we’ve assembled. Because we’ve got some really great examples that we can roll out today and talk to you about, we’ve got a phenomenal panel. So, I’m excited to jump in.

Janet: So, excited. And maybe what we should do is then just go into your piece. I will sign off.

Christine: Yeah. So Eliza, if you could put up that first slide before we start. I just want to let everybody know that we’re going to be talking about some topics that might be unsettling. And if at any point you start to feel upset or any kind of distress from what we’re talking about, please feel free to step away, take care of yourself. This information, as Janet said, will be recorded. You can come back at any time. And I just wanted to also say that there’s other techniques you can use in the meantime, if you want to try to sit through it. They’re grounding techniques you can use to try to touch and feel your physical surroundings, focus on your breathing. Notice what’s happening around you in the real non-virtual world. And that can sometimes help you lower your stress response rate. By all means. If you need to reach out to someone, please do so. you can reach out to someone you trust in your life or use that number on the screen.

And without anything more, I’d like to jump right in, into my piece, which will explain what trauma is and how that relates to correctional design.

Presentation (Video): “Hello, my name is Christine Cowart, and I’m going to talk about what trauma is, how it’s related to correctional facilities and how we can use that knowledge to transform correctional design for justice reform.

I am a certified trauma professional and human services policy analyst with a focus on criminal justice and services to children and families. Through my career, I have worked in correctional systems and facilities in three Northeastern states. Most recently, I served with the Vermont Department of Corrections, before moving to the Department for Children and Families, which is responsible for administering the youth justice system in this state.

I’d like to start out by talking about what trauma is and how it can impact a person. In 1998, a medical practice in California noticed that some of their patients were doing significantly better than others with seemingly similar backgrounds. They identified ten common characteristics that when experienced as a child could result in poor health outcomes. We refer to these as ’Adverse Childhood Experiences’ or ACEs for short. ACES can have lasting negative impacts throughout a person’s life, including increased injury, effects on mental and maternal health, increased infections and chronic disease, and the adoption of risky health behaviors and loss of opportunities.

I want to stress that this is risk, not certainty. There’s a lot of things that can impact how a person is affected by adversity including exercise, life choices, personal relationship and therapy. But as you can see from this list, the effects of these experiences is not just psychological. Having experienced adversity can quite clearly affect a person’s physical health dramatically.

This data shows the prevalence of ACES across our nation. But it’s based on information collected through telephone surveys and it’s believed to be significantly under-reported. Evidence indicates that at least 78-percent of the US population has experienced at least one traumatic event in their lifetimes. In addition to under-reporting, the difference between statistics is explained by recognizing that the data on this chart only includes events that happen prior to the respondent turning 18, and understanding that ACES only represent one group of potentially traumatic events. There are disparities in the rates of adverse childhood experiences within the population.

Studies routinely show that people living the disability are more likely to have experienced ACEs than the general population. This is important to keep in mind because we know that people with disabilities are also more likely to have involvement with the criminal justice system. The results of the national survey of children’s health show that there are racial disparities as well.

This annual nationwide survey asks parents of children under the age of 18 about ACES experienced by their children. The results show that black children are more likely to have higher ACE scores compared to white children, and black children are overrepresented among children with two or more ACEs.

There’s also evidence that the more ACEs the person experiences, the more they’re at risk for negative outcomes. This is called a dose response, and it’s seen across virtually all areas, including the adoption of risky behaviors, such as alcohol and drug misuse. It’s believed that individual increased their usage of these substances as a means of self-medicating in response to the traumas that they’ve experienced.

So if there are other traumatic events beyond ACEs, what is trauma? The substance abuse and mental health services administration defines trauma having three parts. The experience that happens to the individual. The individual has to believe that it’s physically or emotionally harmful or life-threatening, and it has to have lasting negative effects throughout the individual’s lifetime. The recognition that trauma can be caused by more than just personal events, which are represented in this photo by the tree, resulted in the concept of adverse community environments. We see those situations in the roots of this image.

Traumas can be produced by structural environments, which prevents people in communities for meeting their basic needs. Examples are racism, poverty, or housing. Trauma also extends beyond the individuals who are directly related to, or witnessed or experienced violence. An example of this is someone who lives in a community where a school shooting happened but wasn’t directly affected. If a large portion of the people in their community were, the way the whole community interacts can change, and that can affect the people who weren’t directly involved and might not have known someone who was.

Together, at risk community experiences and adverse community environments are sometimes referred to as the pair of ACEs. We now recognize that natural disasters and climate crisis can also be traumatic, as illustrated on the right-hand side of this image. There are three realms of ACEs that can create traumatic events but intertwined throughout people’s lives and affect the viability of families, communities, organizations, and systems.

Traumas can take on different forms. There are acute traumas, which are usually one-time events like an accident, death of a loved one, weather event or assault. Trauma can also be chronic or occurring over time, such as ongoing abuse or neglect, combat situations, or even multiple unrelated traumas.

Trauma can be incredibly complex, such as repeated uprooting, homelessness, human trafficking, and living as a refugee, or experiencing more than one type of ongoing abuse or neglect. And then there are system induced traumas, such as the removal of the child from a family and placement in foster care, sibling separation, having to testify in court against family, and living in extreme poverty.

We all experienced stress in our lives. If I do the same thing over and over and never change things up, I’m feeling pretty comfortable, but I’m also not learning anything. I’m in my comfort zone. In order to learn something new, I have to step outside that comfort zone, even just a little. When I can do this with a feeling of relative safety, that’s positive stress, and that’s when learning happens.

When those boundaries get pushed even more. And I start spreading further out and feeling as though maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. I get nervous. My heart starts racing. I might get blinders or tunnel vision. I feel as though things might get really messed up, and I’m not happy about being in this position. But if it’s relatively short-lived or I have a person or two to process it with after, I might realize I’m relatively okay. And came through it unscathed. I might even feel as though it wasn’t so bad after all, and I could try it again. That might even make me excited because next time I might not be so nervous because I know I had a good outcome this time. This is called tolerable stress.

It’s when those boundaries get pushed even further to a place where I seriously feel as though I can’t handle it. There’s no end in sight. Or I feel as though my life might be in danger. I have no one to process this with afterwards. That’s toxic stress. Toxic stress is the mechanism by which adversity becomes traumatic. Two people can experience the same thing and it might be traumatic to one and not the other. Genetics has something to do with this because some people have a genetic makeup that protects them from the anxiety and depression, but very frequently the difference is whether the person has a supportive adult to rely on who can buffer the person in what would otherwise be traumatic.

When your brain detects a threat, the amygdala or survival brain releases adrenaline, norephrine, glucose, and cortisol, and it revs up your body and your brain and activates your ‘fight, flight or freeze’ response. At the same time the prefrontal cortex thinking part of your brain assesses the threat and either turns up or down that response. Following trauma, studies show that the amygdala is hyper-reactive and the prefrontal cortex is less activated, so that can result in the person experiencing hyper arousal, hyper vigilance, and increased wakefulness and sleep disruption.

In addition to changes within the brain, experiencing toxic stress can result in other physical changes to a person’s body. This image shows some of these physical impacts, and I’d like to highlight that there’s emerging evidence that suggests that changes to genetic markers may be passed down from generation to generation. That could be one of the causes of what we see as intergenerational trauma.

Let’s talk about trauma as a pathway to crime. What do I mean by that? There’s an undeniable link between childhood trauma, and leader criminality. This has become especially true for people who are convicted of drug and property offenses. We know that people who have experienced trauma are more likely to engage in risky behaviors, including the overuse of alcohol, or the use of other substances. Perhaps as a means of self-soothing or self-medicating. Since we’ve outlawed the use of many of these substances, rather than treat it as a medical concern, it is often a direct pathway to criminality. We also know that many people convicted of property crimes engage in that behavior to increase their ability to acquire illicit substances when other sources are no longer available.

Now that we’ve introduced community complex and system induced traumas, we can look at another finding from the ‘National Survey of Children’s Health’. The survey includes the question: “To the best of your knowledge, has your child ever been treated or judged unfairly because of his or her race or ethnic group?” The results show, the black children who’ve experienced individual discrimination have higher rates of ACEs. This is important to note when we talk about the prison population, because a disproportionate percentage of incarcerated people identify as black.

Here you see the 2018 racial disparities in prison incarceration rates adjusted for population. Why is that? Structural racism. We already talked about how people of color are more likely to experience adverse childhood experiences and that community factors such as poverty, involvement in the child welfare system, and experiencing race can be experienced as trauma.

There’s also a phenomenon called the school to prison pipeline that plays a role in it. Studies show that when children are disciplined at school or in the community, children with disabilities, or who are of color, receive harsher penalties for the same behavior as their white peers. While a white child might have his parents called for tripping another child during recess, the child of color might have to sit out or receive an in-school detention. Over time, students build up a record or reputation of having a behavior problem and their punishments continue to escalate to include suspensions and even expulsions.

As the children age, these attitudes carry over to the juvenile justice system. Children of color are more likely to be arrested by school resource officers and more likely to receive harsher sentences. Statistics show that black people are disproportionately stopped by police on the street, and more likely to be arrested. Black youth are arrested far out of proportion to their share of all youth in the United States. Black people are disproportionately serving life, life without parole, or virtual life sentences. In additional to this, Black and Hispanic people are also more likely to be detained in jails before their trials, because they can’t pay the bail.

And people who are incarcerated report, high rates of childhood trauma. I want to take a moment here to talk about children who grew up with ongoing abuse or neglect on homes with domestic violence. We know that when there’s violence within the home, there’s at least one family member who’s experienced trauma. In families with children, the dynamic is even more complex. Parents living with unresolved trauma are often not available to fully support their children.

Children who grow up with chronic abuse or neglect, don’t learn how to form solid attachments or understand cause and effect. This is because babies and children learn that when they cry, or show a need, a parent satisfies that need. In a home without consistency, children never learned from this basic feedback route.

If a person doesn’t understand the cause-and-effect relationship, they may not understand or be able to predict the consequences of certain actions. This can lead to them behaving and reacting to circumstances, without a clear understanding of why some responses are acceptable, and others are not. This can lead to behaviors that others would describe as poor choices, right up to, and including criminal behaviors.

In addition, parents are supposed to be purveyors of safety. So if they’re not safe, how can a child feel safe in the world? To complicate matters, as they grow children model their relationships off of what they see at home, which can lead to cyclical, intergenerational trauma, and choices that result in criminalized behavior. Another remarkable study of incarcerated men by the Missouri Department of Corrections recorded near universal trauma in adolescence.

In addition to childhood trauma, incarcerated people report high rates of trauma throughout life, as compared to community rates. The sexual trauma rates here are worth noting as frequently homeless youth have high rates of being victimized on the streets.

Incarcerated females appear to have different risk factors for offending than male offenders. Incarcerated females show elevated rates of interpersonal trauma, substance dependence, and associated symptoms of post-traumatic stress thought. One study showed the majority of women in jail experienced multiple types of adversity and interpersonal violence in their lives.

Incarcerated females report greater incidents of mental health problems and serious mental illness than incarcerated males. Women with SMI were more likely to have experienced trauma, to be repeat offenders, and to have earlier onset of substance abuse, and running away. The study found that victimization appears to increase the risk of experiencing mental health problems, which in turn is related to increased likelihood of criminal offending.

We’ve talked about how experiencing trauma can affect a person’s understanding of cause and effect leading to criminal behavior. And about the link between self-medicating and criminality. Another reason for the high rates of trauma among incarcerated individuals maybe because some of the symptoms of trauma can lead to behaviors that we might misinterpret as a person refusing to cooperate. These behaviors can be seen by school officials, police, and other authority figures as non-compliance, which can result in stricter penalties for minor offenses.

Over time, a person can accumulate a record that might lead to longer, harsher sentences. Similarly, there are symptoms of trauma that appear from a hyper-vigilance or constant state of arousal that can be misinterpreted. These can be viewed as though the person that was being intentionally hostile, especially when they’re feeling threatened, and can have a similar impact on a person’s outcomes. There are even symptoms which might be overlooked. The results from a person disengaging, feeling numb or tuning out. So if the person shows no outward signs of distress, authority figures might not suspect the history of trauma.

Now that we understand trauma as a pathway to prison, and its prevalence among inmates, we need to talk about the prison environment itself. There are things that can make a person who has experienced trauma feel as though it’s happening again in the present reality. These are referred to as triggers.

Triggers activate the ‘fight, flight or freeze’ response, and limit access to the higher functions of thought because the person truly believes that their life or wellbeing is in danger. Common triggers include unpredictability, sensory overload, feeling vulnerable or frustrated, confrontation, or experiencing something that reminds the individual of a past traumatic event. Most, if not all of these, are commonplace in traditional correctional facilities.

Common triggers in correctional facilities include constant lighting, and never being able to get a good night’s sleep. Imagine how that would affect your healing and wellbeing, and your ability to regulate your emotions, to interact in a calm manner. Loud noises or doors slamming. I worked in one facility where the doors were so loud, I never got used to it. Even knowing this about the place, when the doors were closed, I jumped almost every single time. Imagine what it would be like to be someone with significant trauma who is required to live there and knows that they can’t move.

A lack of privacy, especially in bathrooms. A fear of victimization. The lack of good touch. All sexual relationships are prohibited even if they’re consensual. In many facilities, there are even rules about touching visitors. In some you can’t touch at all. In others, people who are incarcerated are strictly limited to a hug or short touch upon meeting or leaving. And intrusive body searches. These are especially brutal for individuals who’ve experienced prior sexual victimization.

A growing body of research indicates that solitary confinement in which an inmate is held in isolation and which is used as behavior management technique in prisons is ineffective. It can have negative impacts on mental health. As we’re looking at these effects, it’s important to know that this is no exception to the disproportionality and punishment. Black men and women are overly represented in solitary confinement throughout the nation when compared to the total prison population,

Here you can see some of the harmful psychological effects of long-term solitary confinement. It’s important to note that these effects are magnified for juveniles whose brains are still developing, and people with mental health issues who are estimated to make up one third of all prisoners in isolation.

The rates of violence in the US prisons leads to the further traumatization of inmates. Incarcerated persons may also be pressured to make crimes while in prison. This frequently is related to smuggling or selling drugs or cell phones. They might also feel the need to join or befriend a gang for protection, but this can lead to pressure, to make illegal activities. It’s understandable how these experiences could exasperate the symptoms of trauma or even be traumatic themselves.

All this brings us to considering correctional design with a new mindset. We have to rethink with the trauma informed approach. Recidivism is the likelihood of re-offending. According to the National Institute of Justice, almost 44-percent of the recently released return before the end of their first year out. About 68-percent of individuals released in 30 states in 2005 were arrested for new crime within three years of their release. And 77-percent were arrested within five years. And by year nine, that number reached 83-percent.

In 2004, 17-percent of the people incarcerated in state prisons and 18-percent of people in federal prisons said they committed their current events to obtain money for drugs. Statistics show, these are typically property and drug offenses, not related to violence. We know that drug use is linked to trauma, which prisons worsen. And we know that incarceration is not an effective deterrent against future crime. So it seems we need a new approach for non-violent and drug offenses.

Restorative justice emphasizes repairing the harm caused by criminal behavior. It’s best accomplished through a cooperative process that includes all stakeholders. This can lead to a transformation of people, relationships, and communities. When compared to traditional criminal justice responses, restorative justice programs show promising results of being more effective at achieving victim offender satisfaction, offender compliance with restitution, and decreased recidivism of offenders.

We talked about the possible impacts of trauma. We also mentioned that just because a person experienced trauma does not mean they will experience the negative outcomes or risks associated with that trauma. Resilience is a person’s ability to overcome serious hardship. And building a person’s resilience is the number one way to protect against the risk associated with trauma.

A person’s resilience can be built up over time through consistent supportive relationships and spending time in the positive and sometimes tolerable stress zone. As opposed to prisons, which amplify existing and add new traumas to people incarcerated, the practice of restorative justice, work to build their resilience, which can interrupt and impact the past traumas by lowering the individual’s stress response and giving their system the chance to rest. And it’s in this space that healing can happen.

So in implementing a new mindset for justice, if you must work on prisons, I implore you to mitigate or eliminate as many of the triggering aspects of correctional facilities as possible. However, I urge you to think about correctional design as designing new restorative spaces, not prisons. For it’s here that you can make the greatest impact.

Framing correctional design as designing for restorative spaces gives you the opportunity to move past minimizing potential triggers. You can be on the forefront of a new movement for social justice and equity through the spaces that you design. In creating spaces in which healing can happen, you can be part of reducing recidivism, building resilience, and providing a previously elusive sense of physical and emotional safety. And that is the very epitome of trauma informed design.”

Janet: Christine, that was wonderful. As always, you’re able to break it down in these beautiful, easy to understand bite sized pieces that are just, it just makes it so accessible and understandable. And so for that, I thank you. I’m always struck, and always a little heartbroken every time I read the recidivism rate. You know, the 44-percent in 1 year, 76-percent, I think 76.6-percent in 5 years, and 89-percent in 9 years.  And so clearly what we’re doing is, at the moment what we’re doing is wrong. We, we go into some of the history of it next. I’ll let you introduce Jana, but it is, it’s really hard to swallow and clearly what we’re doing is wrong. Do you have any parting words, in terms of design? Those, those triggers, I know you always talked about the doors. Maybe you want to start with that.

Christine: Well, it really comes down to the evidence of trauma and how it can affect the person is so well-documented, there’s no doubt about it. Trauma informed approaches are being integrated, as I said earlier, in all sorts of other fields where we’re dealing with humans, in health education, social sciences, and services. So, given what we know about how people engage in criminalized behavior, and why they engage in that behavior as a self- soothing and a self-regulating means in many cases. And the fact that carceral environments are so trauma inducing, like you said, this is, the doors. That’s the one that I literally jumped every time a door closed in that one facility. It was just overwhelmingly loud.

Janet: And at any time, I mean, you don’t even have to have been in a prison and all you, you, all you have to do is watch a TV show, and you know that iconic, you know clang.

Christine: Oh, I’ve, the funny thing is, is I’ve been in a lot of them. And in this one, it literally was louder than anything you could imagine. And it was, it, it made me feel like it was done intentionally. And when I spoke to people who worked there and I talked about, well, is there some way that you can hold the door so it doesn’t slam? And they’re like, well, we’re moving too quick and we do too much. And we have to be places too, too suddenly, and there’s too many people moving all the time. It just doesn’t make sense. But to get from one part of the facility to another, you had to go through the central operation center. So you couldn’t really move about in your day to day life if you were living in one of these facilities without having to go through these doors constantly. And it’s just a constant reminder of where you are, and that you’re, it’s oppressive, and it just weighs on you. And so, given everything we know, as I was saying, of why people are there, what the environments do to a person, how that would affect your hyper vigilance and your inability to turn off your stress system and just reduce your stress and really be able to bring that down. And be able to control your emotions in a way that we would expect the person to, especially to show that yes, I’m okay to be released back into society. There really is no reason for us to continue building prisons as we know them to exist, when we look at them as a response to most crimes, when we think about recidivism rates and how they’re not working. I mean, we essentially are using prisons as punishment, not as a way to make a person more safe to be back out into society.

Janet: Christine, I’m going to let you go and introduce Jana now and, I’ll see you on the, on the flip side.

Christine: Sounds great. So, I would, have the great honor of introducing Jana Belack. She is a 2-time BAC graduate, and she is going to come on and talk with us about the evolution of carceral design over the last 200 years, and ideas for the future and where we would like to move. Hi, Jana, how are ya?

Jana: Hi. Good. How are you?

Christine: I’m doing great. Can you tell us a little bit about what your talk is going to cover?

Jana: Well basically, like you said, it’s an evolution of the design of prisons in the United States. Over the past 200 years, we have seen several times of reform and these reform theories were greatly, reliant on the architecture to fulfill the theories. So, what I’m looking at here is an evolution from starting in the 1820s and talking about these reform theories. And I think it’s really important to note for today because this is what our, incarcerational landscape has, is, it looks like now due to all these times of reform, cause each time there was a reform, it’s not that we discarded the previous ideas and designs, we kept adding and building. And this has led to us having over 22-hundred prisons, federal and state prisons, in the United States.

And through the presentation, you’ll see the different examples of this. And these buildings have really stood the test of time as most of us know and understand that prisons are typically built from concrete and steel and they’re not easily adapted or demolished. So we continued using these based on the size and our need to over-incarcerate.

Christine: Yeah, it’s a shame that it hasn’t changed much.

Jana: It really is.

Christine: I’m really excited to see what you have to show us. So why don’t you jump right in.

Jana: Great. Sounds good.

Presentation (Video): “Hello everyone, my name is Jana Belack, and I’m here talking about Transforming Correctional Design for Justice Reform. A little bit about me… I am a lead designer at PlaceTailor here in Roxbury, Massachusetts, and a 2x graduate of the Boston Architectural College. In 2010, I graduated with my Bachelor of Design Studies in Sustainable Design. And then I went on to complete my Master of Architecture in 2016 after completing my thesis, ‘A Women’s Prison; Communities for Incarceration’, which was focused on creating uplifting and supportive community settings for women and their children to end the cycle of incarceration.

In 2017, I was honored to be named the John Worthington Ames Scholar, which allowed me the opportunity to travel to the Scandinavian countries of Finland, Sweden, Norway, and also Ontario, Canada, to experience their positive approach to incarceration. Bringing this knowledge back to the BAC, myself and my co-teacher Rand Lemly created the design workshop ‘Design Convicted’, which teaches students through mixed media, the past present and hopeful future of life without prisons, and instead restorative justice practices.

The most beautiful experiences we have had teaching this topic are when you see a student’s perspective on incarceration change. Once they gain an understanding of the negative impact this has on individuals and society as a whole. At least 2 of our students went on to further explore incarceration through their master’s thesis projects. And this was an incredibly rewarding experience.

What I’m here to present today is a brief overview of the evolution of reform theories and the designs which carried out those ideas over the past 200 years in the United States. Because in order to move on to a successful future, we need to understand the failures of the past. And to also understand what we are working with because many of these buildings are still in use today.

Prior to the 1820s, jails in the United States were single room spaces where men, women, and children were all housed together without guards resulting in complete disorder. Food and clothing was also not provided. To alleviate these miseries, society, looked to the penitentiary ideas of routine and structure for reform. As the penitentiary model proved unsuccessful by the 1860s, new ideas reform based on sociology and psychology were experimented through the reformatory. The panopticon, which was a design by English philosopher Jeremy Bentham in 1791 was first constructed in the United States in 1922.

And in the 1970s, we briefly see correctional centers brought into the urban fabric to reduce travel from distant prisons to the courthouses in the city. And now here we are in 2020 when our incarcerated population is over 1.4 million. It is time for another reform. Two other times to note here are in the 1930s, we see security classifications establish the minimum, the medium, the maximum security, all, established by the crime committed.

And in the 1980s, we see the prison population skyrocket through the war on drugs. The war on drugs was meant to target the kingpins of the drug industry, but in reality, this targeted the low-level offenders of impoverished communities, disproportionately affecting black and brown people.

The 1820s saw the emergence of the penitentiary. This was based on reform ideas of the Pennsylvania Separate System and the Auburn Congregate System. Although they were rivaling designs, they had the common theory that routine and structure would alleviate criminal behaviors and they sought to do this through silence, obedience, and labor.

First looking at the Pennsylvania or the separate system, this was based on continuous solitary confinement, labor in the cells, strict silence, and they were to seek penitence from God for their criminal behaviors. The offender would remain in this space for the entirety of their sentence. As you can see in the diagram below, this is a layout of what the individual cells looked like. The doors were low, so they had to bow before walking into the space. There was a skylight above where they would look up to God and seek penitence. To the left we see a realized version of this cell in the Eastern state penitentiary. And again, you can see here, the skylight, the small door. And for the first time we’re seeing heat and plumbing in a prison facility, which is very uncommon because even in the white house at the time of the construction of the Eastern State Penitentiary, they did not have plumbing and heating.

The Pennsylvania System was realized at the Eastern State Penitentiary in 1829. As you can see in the floor plan to the left, architect John Haviland arranged the solitary cells and outdoor spaces in a radial pattern. The pink wing notes where now female offenders are being separated from the males. To the right, we see what the Eastern State Penitentiary looks like today as it is now a national historic landmark. The original plan called for single level floor plan so that each individual cell would have a skylight and an outdoor space, but due to overcrowding by the time of construction ending they added additional wings of two or three levels to house additional offenders.

Now looking at the Auburn or the Congregate System, this was based on solitary confinement at night, congregate labor during the day, and a strict rule of silence, similar to the Eastern State Penitentiary or the Pennsylvania System. Because of this new program, the individual cells were allowed to be much smaller because the offender would only be in here at night for sleep and they would leave for the day to go work in groups.

The images shown here are from Kingston Penitentiary in Canada, which is a replica of the Auburn System. To the left is a replicant in the museum showing what the original cells would look like. But by 1895, these single cells were expanded, and two individual small cells were made into one cell expanding them to 7-feet by 7.5-feet. To the right, we see a corridor in front of the cells showing how light got into the spaces. And you can see in the ceiling where it is ribbed that each rib was an individual cell.

We first see the Auburn Plan realized at the Auburn State Penitentiary in New York. Prior to the Auburn System coming to this prison, we had a one room jail, which housed men, women, and children, but in 1821, the Auburn System of the rectangular prison was built on this site. Similar to the Eastern State Penitentiary, we now see women being separated from men, but in a different way. At the Auburn State Penitentiary women were housed in cramped attic spaces with the windows blacked out so they could not spread their deviant behavior to those on the outside or the other men within the facility. Women were seen as the double deviant at this time, because not only were they committing crimes, they were not upholding their duties as a woman.

The successes of the penitentiary are few. Violence is minimized by separating individuals into their own cells, but it was not eliminated. Violence occurred when the rule of silence was broken, and physical punishments happened. Although basic life needs were met at the penitentiary, food and clothing were provided and heating and plumbing was provided at the Eastern State Penitentiary.

The failures are more common, long sentences quickly led to overcrowding. Violent punishments were common due to past theories that punishment would alleviate criminal behaviors. The design of the spaces caused severe mental, emotional, physical degradation most notably through the use of solitary confinement. And what resulted, there was no effect on crime rates. Nothing was actually done to promote reform in these facilities.

Seeing the failures of reducing criminal behaviors and the negative mental impact on those incarcerated through the use of the penitentiary, performance in the 1860s sought new theories of reform through social work and psychology. They used education, vocation and recreation as the basis for the reformatory.

Ideas of the reformatory included crime is an illness. So punishment is no longer going to reform criminal behaviors. Psychology and sociology come into play. Psychiatrists are now employed at the facilities and guards will receive training. Smaller populations address the individual’s needs. Design is meant to simulate a home life and a life outside of prison, connecting those with society. Nurseries are now common in the women’s reformatories so that the children stay with mothers and maintained familial bonds. There are no walls, fences or security devices. Now we are also seeing that those incarcerated have a voice in how it’s operated because they elected offenders within the facility to speak for them with guards and caseworkers when making decisions. And now indeterminant sentencing is also a new theory. Release is based on achievements and self-improvement, not a specified amount of time.

The reformatories for men were commonly called community prisons. And a great example of this is the Norfolk Prison Colony from 1932. This was a college campus style design where there was dormitories rather than cells and outdoor quad, auditorium and classroom learning, very similar to a college campus. The smaller populations of 50 men per dormitory allowed for individual needs being addressed. And there was no walls, fences, or security devices. The Norfolk Prison Colony still operates today, but it is now the Norfolk Correctional Center. And it’s very common to a modern prison.

A great model of the reformatories for women were the state farms. A great example, being the State Farm for Women at Niantic, in Niantic Connecticut, opening in 1918. This model was meant to teach women education, reading, and writing, cultural aspects, arts, and basically uplift them to resume their duties in society.

This was a cottage-style design, a self-sustaining farm, where the women gardened and basically grew their own food and maintained animals. There was a nursery in this facility for the women to stay with their children to maintain those familial bonds. And again, there’s no walls, fences, or security devices. They strongly urge the connection to nature, with the adjacent lake, Bride Lake, which was located beside this prison where women often swam and used for recreation. This prison is still in operation today, but it is now called the York Correctional Institution. And similar to the Norfolk Prison Colony, it has transformed into a modern prison.

Here we see the floor plans for the State Farm for Women at Niantic. The second level shows individual bedrooms for the twenty-one females who would live here. And on the ground floor, we see common spaces of the kitchen, dining room, and living room which would simulate their homelife.

The successes at the reformatory were many more than at the penitentiary. Staff and group elected counsel, representing those incarcerated, realized that cooperation is much more successful than opposition. The smaller populations encouraged and supported meaningful personal connections and heightened morale.

There was more opportunity at the reformatory for education, training, recreation, and varied treatment programs, which address individual needs and created opportunities post-incarceration. Failures of the reformatory came from criticisms and opposition from politicians and prison guards who did not see eye to eye with the case workers trying to support the goals of the reformatory.

Punishment was continued as this was a past theory that continued into the reformatory that punishment would alleviate criminal behavior, and security above all won out. Though very minimal, escapes did happen, and security took precedent. And all in all, without all of these theories of the reformatory being supported, the whole system failed. Caseworkers were not properly trained, and guards were also not properly trained to support the ideals of the reformatory.

In 1922, we see Jeremy Bentham’s idea of the Panopticon from 1791 realized in the United States. This was based on the idea of control through surveillance, solitary confinement, and labor. Very similar to the early ideas we see from the penitentiary. But this came to the United States much later.

The Panopticon was Jeremy Bentham’s theory of observance. Meaning that, as long as you’re being watched or think you’re being watched, you will behave appropriately. This model was based on continuous solitary confinement, labor in the cell, and controlling behavior through constant surveillance.

As you see in the floor plan here, and the image to the left, there’s a guard in the tower, but those incarcerated don’t know if they’re being watched or not, but the possibility that they are, controls their behavior.

The Panopticon was first realized in the United States in 1922 at the Stateville Correctional Center in Stateville, Illinois. This was called the round house or the F house. The result of this design is poor acoustics, very loud echoes happen throughout this space. It is mentally and emotionally degrading because they are constantly feeling like they are being watched. And it was an antiquated design. Safety and operational hazards occurred and led to the shutdown of this facility. The F house remains built due to its historical significance. And it actually reopened in 2020 to create social distancing for COVID 19 for those incarcerated.

In the 1970s, we see a brief experiment in bringing high rise carceral facilities to the urban context through the MCCs or Metropolitan Correctional Centers. This was based on the idea of humane design in the urban context. But in reality, these prisons look very similar to any other facility outside of the city. The only difference is they build up rather than build out, but this is due to the constraints of urban development.

The Chicago MCC, which is actually a jail rather than a prison, it is more of a short-term facility, by architect Harry Weese, is a great example of this theory of bringing correctional centers into the urban context. Hidden in plain sight, many people walking down the street would not realize this is a prison. The Chicago MCC is a 28-story triangular footprint and the individual cells inside were modeled on boat cabins with built-in furniture and tall narrow windows.

The image at the center of this slide shows the circulation opportunities that those incarcerated might experience during their stay here. They will not hit the ground plane and their only connection to the outdoors is the rooftop exercise yard. The result of the Metropolitan Correctional Centers, they do reduce travel costs from distant prisons to the courthouse when those incarcerated need to travel. But they were designed to be hidden in plain sight, that sort of disguise, not allowing the public around them to know that they are there. This is a missed opportunity to engage those incarcerated with the surrounding community and the amenities that it has to offer in education, healthcare, and social interactions.

Over the past 200 years, we have witnessed several designs for prisons promising reform, but they have all resulted in simply detaining those incarcerated until the end of their sentence. Mostly due to overcrowding, the reform theories could not keep up with growing populations. In response to this growing population the individual prisons have been combined over the time, creating large complexes.

Seen here is the New Jersey State Prison, which is actually America’s oldest operational prison opened in 1798 and operating today. You can see how over time different additions have been added. You can see the Auburn rectangular plan, the Pennsylvania system of the radial plan, and a modern addition to the bottom of the complex. This all designed to house 1200 individuals.

We see the same trend happening across the country, from California to Michigan to Louisiana. Louisiana happens to be the largest corrections complex in the country where over 5,000 people reside here. Our need to over incarcerate has led to 2,292 federal and state prison facilities being built in the United States housing over 1.4-million people.

Looking at prisons over the past 200 years, the failures are in the one size fits all approach. What works for one person may not work for another and each period of reform focused on helping one type of person, excluding the reformatory period. The penitentiary has failed in the solitary confinement, silence, penitence, long sentences and large populations. Punishment has resulted in physical, mental and emotional degradation. Opposition between guards and caseworkers has deterred reformatory practices from being successful. And separating those incarcerated from their support systems on the outside leads to higher recidivism rates.

The successes, though minor, the lowered amount of violence from separating individuals into separate cells and meeting basic life needs, food and clothing being provided. But the big successes over the prisons of the past 200 years came in the reformatory ideals. Joint responsibility, individualized programs, small populations, positive spaces, opportunity, variety in program and design to fit more than just the one size fits all, heightened morale, and addressing the traumas of criminal behaviors.

Reform Now- it is 2020, and we are looking for new ideas of reform. So why don’t we learn from the past, take the successes and get rid of the failures. Revive and modernize the reformatory theories. Creating community style settings rather than isolating institutions will reflect the successful aspects of the reformatory, but we need to ensure proper training for staff and commit to the goal of addressing individual needs rather than strict security.

Ideas we can take from the reformatory are: joint responsibility, so everyone has a say; individualized programs to address each person’s needs; self-improvement; small populations; connections with society are critical; and also is variety. Aspects for the design will include simulating a community modeled on the world outside of prison to alleviate the need to integrate with society upon release. Continual support during and after incarceration and indeterminant sentencing, release being based on achievements. All this can be done with cooperation and respect between all parties involved.

One very difficult aspect we have to overcome is the separation we have created between carceral facilities and society. 53.2-percent of those incarcerated are 100 to 500 miles from home. Of those people, 25.9 will receive visits. According to the Minnesota Department of Corrections, the average recidivism rate after one year of release is 43.3-percent. We can see a reduction of 13- to 25-percent in this recidivism rate when visitation from friends and family occurs.

In one of the most extreme instances I have found through my research is the Saguaro Correctional Center. This private prison is located in Arizona, but it’s contracted for the state of Hawaii due to land constraints on the Islands. In an article by the Marshall Project, a family of three discusses the difficulty in staying connected to loved ones incarcerated here. According to the Marshall Project, 1,391 Hawaiians are incarcerated in Saguaro. To travel to Saguaro to visit a loved one is over 8-thousand miles round trip. And the cost is over 2,000-dollars. Often times this can only happen one year at the most.

As I previously mentioned, I’ve visited Scandinavia to experience their positive approach to incarceration. And I’m aware that we cannot simply pick up their model and drop it into the United States expecting the same results. But there are many aspects I believe would translate. The first being, maintaining a ‘sense of self’ while incarcerated. The first day that I was in Finland meeting with the criminal sanctions agency, I referred to those incarcerated as inmates. They stopped me, and said, ‘we do not call those incarcerated inmates, we call them clients, because we as a society have failed them and it is our job to improve them’.

Next, traveling on to Sweden, I posed the question the first day that I met with the criminal sanctions agency there, I said, do you refer to those incarcerated as clients or inmates or those incarcerated, what do you refer to them as? And they looked at me strangely and said, we call them by their name. They simply call them by their name.

The second aspect we could bring back to the United States is simulating a normal lifestyle, which is what we have talked about with the reformatory. In Scandinavia, the loss of freedom is the only punishment. The third aspect is meaningful experiences. Also something that is present in the reformatory model, positive environments and interactions between staff and clients occurred daily.

One aspect that I believe really would maintain familial bonds is a reprieve. In the open prisons in Scandinavia, they’re allowed time away, maybe a weekend, to spend time with family and friends and really get a chance for a mental and emotional escape of incarceration.

While I was at Halden Prison, I spoke to this man in the picture playing the guitar, Sam Tax, and I spoke with him at length in his recording studio about the situation of prisons in Scandinavia versus the United States. And he said to me, this quote, “you must take this to America, treat people with respect and they will not be mean. if you give respect, you will get respect.” And this picture is Sam Tax and his band, which is guards at Halden Prison playing in the restaurant at Halden Prison.

I’ll leave you with this image from Vanaja Vankila, a women’s prison in Finland, which is designed to simulate a community style living and has proven successful, and there are very low recidivism rates.”

Janet: That was terrific. I just, I love it so much. First of all, I just wanted to say that the Auburn congregate system, I mean that picture of the man in that jail cell, I mean, he could barely move his elbows. It gave me a little bit of a panic attack. I don’t remember seeing it, in our practice runs and, or I just didn’t want to see it. I, like I said, I had a real visceral reaction and I’ve been reading some of the comments. And, the reformatory part, really we were moving in the right direction, and then for some reason we got distracted and here we are now in 2020 and I really think that the whole Scandinavia piece is so important. And just a little side note for all you people, is that Jana and I might be going in 2022 to Scandinavia with some students. We’re going to use our well-deserved vacation breaks to, to look at prisons. And maybe a couple of the mental wards, but I think it’s really fascinating that they call people by their names or they call them clients. And that picture, you really have to look hard at that picture with the musician. I mean, it looks like that would be at like your Oh, like country club.

Jana: It’s a gourmet restaurant because they have a, they focus on classes and training that really apply once the clients are outside of prison, because you know, these skills they need to get a job afterwards.

Janet: Again, I saw your presentation before, I was, I was making the connection. I said, Holy smokes. I see a China cabinet. I see wallpaper. I see a chandelier. I’m like, okay, we are, we are way behind. Well, Oh, and also seeing the feed, I just want to quickly add before I introduce Dana, and then I want your feedback real quick, Is the thing that I, again, looking at your piece prior, was it struck me, was the people move going from Hawaii to Arizona. It’s a plane ride over an ocean. And I think in order to help to keep recidivism rates down, it’s, I don’t understand where the disconnect is, I feel like that’s sort of prison 101 or human being 101. I don’t, I don’t understand why that seems reasonable.

Jana: Well, it’s all money driven, really. There’s not enough space on the islands and they don’t want to use the space to build a corrections facility. And there’s plenty of space in the mainland. And there’s a private prison there that will happily take the money. It’s all money driven.

Janet: Yeah. So we have to look at that. Thank you so much, Jana. We’ll bring you in again later for some question-and-answer period.

Jana: Thank you.

Janet: Thank you. And next up we have, Dana McKinney and Dana is quite accomplished. We’re very excited to have her. She’s an architect and urban planner and advocate, which, I mean check all those boxes. She graduated from Princeton with an AB in architecture. She has her master’s in architecture and urban planning, from Harvard Graduate School of Design and what is also kind of fascinating about it, she’s founder of Black and Design Conference, and as well as Map the Gap in African American Design Nexus. So welcome Dana. Did I get that all right?

Dana: Thank you.

Janet: Okay, great. So thank you so much for being here. I’m going to allow you to do your thing. And I’m, I’m going to, I’m going to check out,

Dana: okay

Janet: So I’ll talk to you later.

Dana: Awesome, thank you.

Janet: Thanks, bye.

Presentation (Live): “Before I get started, I just kind of want to introduce how I kind of fit into this conversation. While I was in my masters at the GSD, I decided to study the carceral system as my focus for my thesis, my architecture thesis. Having been working a lot in advocacy, in Black Lives Matter, in the NAACP and in the city of Boston I really wanted to focus on something that was extraordinarily emotional, relevant to me and my own family’s legacy and history, as well as something that I think would challenge myself, but not just myself, but also the university to look at issues that are kind of more socially oriented. And so, this is my thesis from that time called ‘Societal Simulations, A Carceral Geography of Restoration’.

So I wanted to go to the city that inspired me to become an architect and urban planner in the first place, which is Newark, New Jersey. Newark sits about nine miles from Manhattan, just for context. And it’s a historically black and brown city also known as the brick city. So this is the home that my mother and her siblings and my grandparents grew up in. It’s in a very nice neighborhood with tree-lined streets. It’s near one of the city’s more major parks.

However, as a child, I would go back and forth from my house, growing up in Connecticut, to this home in New Jersey. And to get to this house, when you get off the highway, you have to go through a city that is otherwise heavily blighted. And seeing that sort of discrepancy between the environment that my grandparents were in, the one that I was in at home, and the ones that just immediately surrounded their little haven, it really inspired me to look into architecture and the interface of architecture and planning.

So why Newark? Newark to me is sort of the telltale story of industrialized cities, or post-industrialized cities rather. And so the city, like many others in the East coast, really became to diversify in the 1900s, when, there’s a huge influx of immigration from Europe. And so this is just a map showing the different sort of ethnic racial pockets that started to establish over the city in that time period.

At one point in the 1930s, 1940s, the city really started to become like a bustling hub and almost served as a twin city to New York, really supporting financial services, especially such as insurance. And it also had one of the largest ports in the country.

However, like most American cities Newark was, I guess you can say, influenced by red lining. And so, there were significant swats of the city that only white residents were able to acquire property on. And most black and brown residents were then relegated to sort of these outer corners of the city.

In 1967, similar to other major cities at the time, there was a series of race riots. The main one took place over three days and resulted in significant damage of the downtown center, which again was sort of this twin to Manhattan. And as you can see in the next slide, it really resulted insignificant white flight. And so what’s sad about Newark is that it used to have like a huge amount of diversity across like, ethnic groups near Europe. You had blacks and browns people, but after that point, there was a significance of white flight.

And with that came sort of the incarceration of this urban condition itself. This is an example of a public housing development in the city, not too far from downtown. If you go to this development, there’s one way in, and one way out. The entire development has other gates, though, all of which have been padlocked closed. So, you would imagine this could have numerous implications in terms of fire hazards and life safety, but instead, this is how they treat a lot of the low-income residents.

There has been a lot of significance of blight, such as fires and graffiti and homes like this are spread throughout the entire city’s landscape. And that’s what stood out to me was that it feels like the city had given up on itself. And had prepared its population to be incarcerated. There there’s very little separation between the two. An example of the brick and the CMUs, this barbed wire, the chain linked fence and the graffiti. Again, this is everywhere across the city’s landscape. Incidents of gunshots going through windows. And again, barbed, I mean, having the plywood backing, it’s just a depressed environment and it feels like the prisons that surround it.

So here’s one of those prisons that surrounds it, the Northern State Prison. So this is one of the larger facilities for the state of New Jersey holding about 25-hundred people right now. You go to the next slide; you can see that it actually stands right next to Newark International Airport. But also sits kind of opposite the highway or opposite the train tracks from the waste management facility. So if you were to go onsite, you would smell all the waste that’s being processed on that facility. And for people who aren’t allowed to leave on a regular basis, it’s a pretty oppressive environment.

The city of Newark also houses one of the county’s juvenile detention facilities. And I’m sure some of you are aware, but for those who are not, juvenile detention has been kind of increasingly getting smaller, which is a good thing, kind of a recognition of the sort of detriment that juvenile detention has on people.

And this facility is interesting because it sits very close to downtown and it’s opposite a charter school and relative to a lot of other sort of residential spaces. And so it’s, I think it’s kind of harrowing for the youth that live in the neighborhood because they’re constantly aware of this sort of prospect of being incarcerated in a facility like this.

So with this urban condition in mind, 1-in-4 residents in Newark, New Jersey have a lifetime likelihood of being incarcerated. If you just let that sit in for a second, that’s pretty heavy. And this, it’s all part of a bigger system. It’s all part of the American carceral system. And so for bigger perspective, everyone should know that there’s 7.3-million people who are in the carceral system. There are four parts of that system, one being prisons and jails, so that’s incarceration, and then community supervision, being probation and parole.

Over time, so this is sort of the, the landscape of the carceral system. Over time that, those numbers have exploded, especially as a result of sort of things like the sentencing reform act, the war on crime, the war on drugs, the three strikes policies. Sort of in the early Obama administration, and there was a lot of federal pressure to sort of start decarcerating, especially among youth. But with that decarceration, there’s a whole litany of issues of what do you do with those facilities?

As an example, in the State of Connecticut, there are about fifty kids who are currently incarcerated in their juvenile detention system. To keep just those fifty kids in at a time it’s about a million dollars a year. So with fewer kids in the system, it’s great, but the cost to keep them in there is exponentially greater.

And this is just a breakdown of state, federal, and local jails, as well as juveniles facilities and, other facilities such as immigration detention. A lot of people think it’s just violent crime, but there’s also a huge proportion of drug and property and public order offenses.

And just another lifetime likelihood. It is, you cannot talk about incarceration without linking it to race and ethnicity. And so, there’s a 1-in-3 lifetime likelihood of black men to go, to, to be incarcerated. And 1-in-18 for black women. We should note that for black women especially that is the population that is growing the fastest currently. And there are repercussions of this for family destabilization, especially because you’re ripping away a lot of times, mothers from their children, mothers from caretaking for their adult older parents. But this is also an issue, an imbalance for Latin X men and women.

As we said earlier in this talk, 76.6-percent of people recidivise within five years, that is absurd. Given the cost that we are spending to supposedly rehabilitate people, the system is not working and we should all acknowledge that what we have right now is broken and it’s functionally flawed.

So, I want it to look at what the alternative could be. And I knew for one, I didn’t want it to be a prison. I think that the prison system as a whole is flawed, as I just said. And I think that we need to think about more innovative approaches that allow people to be, to remain in their communities, to keep family stabilized and to also stabilize communities, such as Newark.

And I approached the project by thinking about it as a village for restoration and inoculation for recidivism. The next slide basically walks you through all the things of spatially, aesthetically, materiality of what is currently versus what I aspire to in the future. And just the main things to think about are warmth, brightness, ecology, freedom, advancement. These are all metrics of, for me, what success could be in this new system. I want to focus on Newark again, because it was the space that inspired me to be an architect. And I want to focus on Baxter Terrace, highlighted here in orange. This particular site is the site of the first public housing project in the city of Newark.

If you go to the next slide you’ll see, it was this awful brick development built in 1941, which was actually segregated by floor plan. So by floor plate rather, every other floor. So black, white, black, for example. And then the facility was eventually torn down in 2012 because it was overrun by issues of sex trafficking and drugs and gang violence. And has subsequently just stayed vacant in the city. It’s a pretty significant parcel and it’s relatively close to downtown, but it’s kind of has this, people don’t really want to touch it. No developer has really proposed any efforts on it since then.

And so, I wanted to create a model that was the village, but the village has three major components, one of rehabilitation, which is restorative justice for me, empowerment. So including places of employment, as well as activities, because everybody deserves to have fun in my opinion, and security through housing. A lot of times we see that in recidivism people are actually getting picked up and going back to a jail or prison because they’re unable to secure housing. And housing insecurity in general in major cities is a huge concern. And so I just think that it’s important to allow somebody to properly rehabilitate that they have to feel secure in their environment.

I’m going to walk you through some of the design that I had done for this project. So this is the ground floor plan, as you can see. I was really hoping to not create something that would feel like it stigmatized the residents of the facility. And for one, it was important to maintain a street wall, cause that’s how the rest of the city is. And once you enter the site and once you become a resident of this facility, that’s when this sort of, the rigidity of the community starts to break down and it starts to open up to landscape and the amenities.

On the ground floor. I also want to place a host of retailers as well as places of employment. It was really important to find companies and organizations that don’t have that box that says, have you committed a felony offense? A lot of times at a discriminatory metric on a lot of applications. So I went through and found a bunch of companies that don’t currently have that question. As you’ll get further in the presentation though, you’ll also see that it was an opportunity to insert these spaces for restorative justice.

So the residential component of the building was pretty multifaceted. I wanted it to be an opportunity for people of different family structures to be able to reside on the site. If someone who lives alone, they could get a single room occupancy or a 1-bedroom apartment. If you have a family of four, you could get a 2-bedroom or 3-bedroom unit. If you are an intergenerational family, there are units up to 7 bedrooms that could have, like, house grandma, grandpa, mom, dad, and kids.

It was really important that there is this flexibility and that you would not separate families just because there was an issue within the, an interaction with the justice system. And then as you move up the building, the setbacks increase from the interior courtyard, so that you enter, allow more light to enter the units as well as changing the typologies as well.

So here’s just an exterior view of the site. Again, I’m not looking for this to be revolutionary on the outside. I just want it to somewhat blend in, have some nice features. I was imagining this sort of articulated brick pattern. But again, you’re also not too far from New York. So like when you’re standing on the site, you actually have an amazing view of lower Manhattan.

As you go into the site. There is a public promenade that starts to really insert opportunities for ecology. There’s a huge linkage to trauma and the benefit of green space, light, open air, water, and I want to integrate, integrate elements like that throughout the campus, or the village. So there’s a whole host of trees and tall grasses and water features.

There’s also an amphitheater. This is largely to help, afford people the opportunity to celebrate the arts, to celebrate opportunities to be together, and to just have moments of relief in their lives. Because a lot of the times when people are being incarcerated, It’s because of stressors. It’s because of the trauma that they’ve experienced in the past.

And just the view of what that amphitheater could look like. I’m actually imagining each of the terraces being grassed, just to provide more comfort, as well as more greenery in the space.

A multi-purpose room. When I was doing this project, I actually kind of conducted little focus groups in the city. And one of the things that people talked about was that there wasn’t really a great space to have a party. There wasn’t a really great space to have a quincenara or a wedding or even a community meeting. And so to have an open space directly onsite where residents could have their weddings, could have their kids’ birthday parties, or where they could have meetings, and really facilitate onsite engagement was really important. And this is a sort of like this concrete and glass volume that’s sitting over a water feature. So you can see just the volume right there.

And then the last component of the project is the restorative justice. So again, just to remind everybody restorative justice is this practice in which you bring together the person who has committed the crime, or who’s been convicted of the crime, the victim of the crime, as well as the community. And so I wanted to create spaces for this activity, exclusively for the residents of the site, that they can then invite others in to participate in this practice.

And so I’m just going to run you through a few of the different ones that I had designed for the site. This is called the mounds. And again, it’s really an opportunity to integrate landscape, architecture, and the practice of restorative justice.

Stripes. Radial. A few of them like this one, actually, they are trying to also create levels of variance, but they also can be used as sort of open space to be used on a regular basis. So maybe you have a booking system, for 9 to 5, it’s used for restorative justice and before and after hours, it can just be used for people to take picnics and whatnot.

Pond. So this one’s actually has a view that directly overlooks a small pond on the site. The labyrinth. I chose a labyrinth as one of the main ones to focus on just because labyrinths are used as a spiritual practice, and acknowledging the spirituality of many people in the community. It’s also a way to meditate. And so I wanted to create these spaces that people can have self-reflection or they could have an opportunity to kind of, become one with the earth, become one with themselves. Next you can see of you, what that looks like. And the labyrinth actually has trees that are kind of scattered throughout the space itself.

Hilltop. And this is me kind of thinking about MLK’s speech about surmounting the Hilltop. But I want, and also just creating a different perspective for people, so really bringing people up into space. If you go to the next slide, so that they can then see a tree canopy below. There aren’t a lot of trees in the city unless you’re fortunate enough to live in a certain neighborhood. And so to really have opportunities for people to become, to interact with that landscape within their own home environment as well.

Walls, which is an exterior space. And it’s also to acknowledge that there is a lot of street art in the community. If you go to the next slide, it’s half restorative justice space, half gallery. And so you can invite residents to do exhibitions and actually use the walls as opportunities to display their art.

And Flower Field. This particular one is probably my favorite. And during one of the focus groups I was doing, one of the ladies I was talking to was talking about how she just missed all the flowers that she grew up seeing. She missed the Rose gardens in her grandmother’s backyard. And someone was like, Oh, my grandma had a Rose garden. And I was like, my grandmother used to have a Rose garden. And so to have color and an opportunity to like, really see the seasonality, and kind of depress yourself within that color, and that ecology.

Next slide. Let’s see. It’s frozen on my end. anyone else?

Janet: Yeah, it’s frozen here.

Dana: Okay, well. It’s okay. That was basically the end of my presentation. So…

Janet: Ok, I’m coming on in, that was terrific. I, I particular appreciate the biophilia parts. That, that whole idea of, the rose garden, those are, they resonate so much with so many people on it and it’s such a simple thing to do, right. We didn’t really get into it with Jana’s presentation, but that triangle building, there was only the top part was their recreational outdoor space. Right? So there wasn’t a lot of opportunity for, I suppose that we, as good designers would probably come up with some ways to at least create some sort of green space up there, but I love the design and you and I have talked a little bit…

Dana: There it is.

Janet: ah there you go. Well, you were right, there was only one more slide. So, I really appreciate, that kind of design. And, you and I talked about this whole idea, mayor Menino in Boston had got banned, essentially the, the grates on, on some of the more inner city, main streets, if you will. And, and that was actually the name of the program. And people were panicked, that this idea of the grates going away would be like pandemonium. And meanwhile, he was sick and tired of seeing the graffiti and he had seen it work, I think in Pennsylvania, where actually crime rate went down sure enough. Right. Crime rate actually went down. And so I love the idea of putting the stores around the perimeter and also using that as opportunities to be training, correct?

Dana: Yeah, absolutely.

Janet: Yeah. So is there anything else you want to add that we should talk about this afternoon?

Dana: Well, I mean, I, I mean, just the, I think everyone so well described how trauma can really influence like people’s lives and their outcomes. And just to consider that, and as a way to humanize the people who get kind of into the system. I think a lot of times people otherize those who’ve been incarcerated. And I think it’s just really important to centralize their trauma and to centralize them as people who got mixed up or were institute, there, were sort of systematically oppressed in a way that led them to this life or this condition.

Janet: Systematically, and also, jump in Christine, if you, if you can. See you’re looking a little fuzzy right now, but it, it’s, what was the word that you used? It goes from generation to generation and, and that’s problematic, as well. And, you know, and then with Jana’s piece, this whole idea of separating people from their family and their friends. And it was interesting. I know that there was a piece just recently in Boston where a man, because of COVID, he was really, he had robbed a bank in Boston or in Framingham, I think it was. And he, he was shipped to someplace in the South. And he had no family that came, but because of COVID, they gave him a bus ticket back to Boston and, some lunch money and, and that was essentially it. And so he came into, South station. And from South station, I think he was home for maybe like 10 days or so. And then he ended up robbing another bank. And I just thought to myself, they set them up to fail and, and that’s hard. Go ahead, Christine.

Christine: One of the things we see all the time is, while incarcerated there aren’t a whole lot of treatment programs or things like that, that work with individuals. There’s a lot of facilities don’t have, even have the funds for therapy or counseling for the people who are incarcerated. So you have this effect of the intergenerational trauma and possibly not having learned the cause and effect relationship. And you have all of those things that I talked about, about not being able to regulate your responses and being in a situation where you haven’t really learned how to deal with the trauma from the past to have reactions that are seen as socially acceptable. You haven’t learned positive self-care mechanisms, all those things that can increase the likelihood of you offending. Then you go into a facility that’s corrections, right, to correct behavior, that’s the intention. But you go into a facility where there is no real attempt at doing that. And then you come out and now, as you said, your example was perfect. The person coming out might not have any income, has to check the box that they’ve been incarcerated, so that’s going to keep them from earning an income. They may not have access to identification. That’s going to keep them from accessing an income. What are we setting them up to do? We’re setting them up to fail. And it’s, it’s seen over and over again.

And just in case, you’re wondering why I said they may not have access to identification. When you go into a facility, you can’t have your ID with you. You have to turn it over. So most people when they report, report without it. So it could be in somebody’s home somewhere, or you may not be able to access it. It could be an ex-girlfriend that you’re no longer talking to. I’ve heard of cases where it was in someone’s’ family home and the house burnt down. All sorts of situations where these relationships are being disrupted. Because as we said, I don’t know if you were able to follow the chat, there’s been a conversation in there about how difficult we make it to visit people who are incarcerated.

And so, the relationships break down and there’s no link to the outside. And it’s just a recurring problem. It builds on itself.

Janet: Right.

Christine: So we did have a question in the chat, Dana, that I think was directed in large part to your presentation. Adriana wanted to know, “Do you think that the, that the belief by some that prison is quote “better than being in the community” end quote, because the community is so rugged unkempt and uncared for”

Dana: I do not believe in that at all. I, I would call myself an abolitionist, but I do believe that there are some extreme cases where someone does need to be, removed from the household. But I firmly believe that the detriment to the family, the detriment to the individual is far greater than the detriment to the community at large. And if we’re really talking about rehabilitation and we believe that somebody is of worth and that they are a value to society, then we need to keep them in society and help them like get back on their feet. I really think that this notion of retribution, is outdated and antiquated. And that it doesn’t work. And we have seen for decades that it doesn’t work. And I guess there’s definitely this sort of, I wouldn’t say maybe nimbyism of people being afraid of people coming into their, or staying in their communities having offended. But if you look at the city of Newark, for example, if you look around everyone or like 1-in-4 people in the city have, have been convicted of an offense, so that is the city at this point, what is the point of removing them? And what is the point of destabilizing their families or removing them from their place of employment or removing them from their education. Those are all things that keep them stable. So that’s just my response

Christine: and just based off of what I saw in the chat, but I think Adriana would agree with you. I think her concern is that there’s a societal belief that perhaps it’s better than being in the community. Janet and I had the conversation last night about the, the belief of 3 hots and a cot. You know, it’s so bad out on the streets, especially if you’re homeless or you have a mental illness, it might be better for you in a facility where at least you’re getting 3 meals a day, a place, stable place to sleep, your quote, unquote safe, and people have this idea that you have access to countless hours of therapy, which I, I’m here to say in many States, such is not the case. So,

Dana: I mean, in the state of New Jersey, the average cost to incarcerate somebody it’s about 57-thousand dollars a year. Like if you gave that 57-thousand dollars a year to that entire family, like yeah, they could pay for the entire family’s housing, that could pay for all of their food, that can pay for their public transportation, then maybe a car. Like that money is so much better utilized as a social service than it is in like slapping the back of the person’s hand and then making the rest of their families and their lives miserable. There’s, even if you just look at it from the economics perspective, it’s not worth it.

Janet: right. and also, I mean, all of, a lot of this goes back to racism and it’s, it’s extremely problematic. Rand Lemley, who I stole this idea from, joined into the chat and, and one of the things that he has said “incarceration has been used as a weapon of oppression. And the effects are felt by family, friends, and even felt decades later, as Dana mentioned, we have other options for reconciliation and, that don’t involve incarceration.”

And that is basically like what we are, we’re saying here enough is enough and we can do better. So, I don’t know if there’s any other questions Jana. I know that you’re listening in. Do you want to join into, we can only have 3 on at a time. I can turn off my camera for a minute. If you want to jump in, hold on. There you go.

Christine: We do have another question that I think Jana and Dana are best to answer. And that came earlier, just after my presentation, from Stephanie that was, “Has any US jurisdiction asked you to consult on prison ‘remodeling’ in quotes. Do you have any outline of what would need to be done to create a trauma informed facility? And what would these spaces look like?”

Janet: great question.

Christine: So, In response. The very first piece I would say is I have not been asked to, to consult on that type of a thing. When I was working for the Vermont department for corrections, we did talk about certain things within their facilities that were causing issues to the inmates who were there. And we talked about different things that could be done to mitigate them. But there was no money or anything for a redesign. It was more about behavioral, interactions between the people who work there and the people who were incarcerated there. With that said, Dana and Jana talked a bit about the design of other spaces, and I think our overall push has been for a restorative justice approach as opposed to a correctional facility. But I’ll let them take it away from there.

Jana: Well back to the consulting portion. I have not, but that’s not my full-time job. I work in a different area of architecture right now, but interestingly enough, I met with, I visited some places in Canada, in Ontario, Canada, and I met with the designer that was on the team for the corrections department and she, she has reached out to me twice. I went back and I discussed some design aspects and other theories with her. So in Canada, yes. But in the United States? No. And I know recently here in Massachusetts, there was a call for proposals to renovate an old facility, but that quickly came to a halt after, opposition, because it wasn’t focused on reform.

Dana: so in LA County where I live and work, there is definitely a huge progressive agenda going on right now in the justice system and justice reform. We had a few measures, and bond measures that went out this past election. And so, I kind of was doing a little bit of work on that for measure J. Specifically, which was looking at, reallocating the top 10- percent of County, countywide tax revenue to reallocate that to fund alternatives to incarceration, homelessness, housing, and a job like training programs for black and brown people in the County. In conjunction with that, the counties, board of supervisors, so the County is broken into 5 different supervisor, supervisorial districts. excuse me, the board of supervisors has a 5, 5 of them had actually canceled a new jail contract summer of 2019. And it was like a 2-billion dollar contract to reconstruct from the jails in the middle of downtown. So that contract has subsequently stopped. And they are now revising what to do with that money, because there was so much pushback from the community. So there has been some conversation. I can’t talk about it too much, but there has been some conversations about that.

Jana: And I think to touch on what these spaces would look like, that’s a really difficult, I find that’s a difficult thing to define as being, ‘it would look like this’ because I feel that the, the environments need to be adaptable to those who live there because not everybody likes the same style living and the same spaces. So I think it needs to be adaptable. But I also think it needs to very much reflect what life is like in your, in your home life, but in a positive way.

Dana: Well, I do know that within the County, one of the things that we’re looking at is smaller residential models, which would be like no more than 50 family, or no more than 50 people is kind of like the maximum and there, it would be kind of wraparound services. But I think that the way that the County are attacking it, isn’t just from, from the justice system, it’s also looking at homelessness and affordable housing, but it’s also because like, those populations that are in each of those systems are for the most part, one and the same, or there’s a lot of, interaction between the 2, but a lot of it is going to be sort of residential models.

Janet: alright, I think it’s worth noting, if you guys have any other questions, please put them into the chat box now. And I just want to say that, Davis had mentioned something that we really have to start demanding, more equitable health and wellbeing opportunities for all. I think COVID has exposed a lot, which I think is kind of interesting.

Okay. All right. So we’ll take one last question. All right. So this question I think is for Dana, “Have you seen any examples of progress towards state and municipal governments implementing restorative justice?”

Dana: I mean, in the Bay area. So like Berkeley, Oakland, San Francisco, they’ve been moving towards, looking at implementing restorative justice models, quite a bit. There’s, an actual architectural firm run by Deanna van Buren, called ‘designing justice’. I’m going to mess this up, ‘designing justice/designing spaces’ or ‘designing spaces/designing justice’, something like that. I’m sorry, Deanna. But they, are an organization out of Oakland that kind of works in between research and practice and they are actually working with those, that local municipality. And I think also a little bit in Washington, DC as well if I remember correctly.

Christine: Also, in the state of Vermont, we have 12 restorative justice centers throughout the state. They work as a diversion opportunity for people who have property or drug crimes. And they work a lot with our youth as well. So it’s on both fronts and what they do is they operate with the courts as an alternative to incarceration and we’ve seen great success through them. They’re, they’re working really well and I’m sure other States have similar diversionary programs. And that’s the terms that you’ll probably hear them refer to a lot of times as court diversion, or sometimes you’ll hear drug court, or we also in Vermont have something called safe babies court, which is a specific opportunity for parents to work with the courts to avoid the criminal justice system and the child welfare system, as a means of being able to become safe families for their children. And like I said, they’ve been wildly successful,

Janet: so. All right. So, the connection, yeah, the connection’s getting a little bit bad. So, I just, I think maybe what we should do is wrap things up a little bit. I just want to end a little bit. Just quickly on, the James Baldwin quote, which I’m sure you probably have heard quite a bit just recently. But I think it resonates for this particular conversation as well, which is “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced”. And I hope that this is a conversation that we will continue to have, throughout, the next year or so.

I just want to do a couple of quick thank yous before we sign out… obviously BAC, Mahesh Dass who’s the president, for your understanding and being an incredible leader and forward thinking, in this particular area. Eliza Wilson and Kristen Hansen for being fierce advocates for this particular program. Thank you so much for everything that you have done.

My panelists today, Jana and Dana McKinney for your hard work and dedication in this area. I hope it noticed for years to come and evolves to everything that we can kind of hope and aspire to. And, Christine! Christine Cowart is my co-host, my co-host extraordinaire. We’ve gone through a big long journey together on this and I, I couldn’t have done it without you.

And I also want to thank a few people on the way that have also added to this program, although they were not on this particular program and advocates and other designers, even if they might be from ‘fly- over states’, they had a lot to offer. And, and last but not least my co-producer, Carolyn Robbins, who’s my right-hand person on all of this.

And so with that, I will say, thank you very much. I was your host today, Janet Roche. And as we say on our Inclusive Designers Podcast, ‘stay well and stay well-informed’. Thank you very much. We’ll talk to you later. Bye.”

Presentation Videos:

Christine Cowart- “Implications of Understanding Trauma on Correctional Design”

“Hello, my name is Christine Cowart, and I’m going to talk about what trauma is, how it’s related to correctional facilities and how we can use that knowledge to transform correctional design for justice reform.

I am a certified trauma professional and human services policy analyst with a focus on criminal justice and services to children and families. Through my career, I have worked in correctional systems and facilities in three Northeastern states. Most recently, I served with the Vermont Department of Corrections, before moving to the Department for Children and Families, which is responsible for administering the youth justice system in this state.

I’d like to start out by talking about what trauma is and how it can impact a person. In 1998, a medical practice in California noticed that some of their patients were doing significantly better than others with seemingly similar backgrounds. They identified ten common characteristics that when experienced as a child could result in poor health outcomes. We refer to these as ’Adverse Childhood Experiences’ or ACEs for short. ACES can have lasting negative impacts throughout a person’s life, including increased injury, effects on mental and maternal health, increased infections and chronic disease, and the adoption of risky health behaviors and loss of opportunities.

I want to stress that this is risk, not certainty. There’s a lot of things that can impact how a person is affected by adversity including exercise, life choices, personal relationship and therapy. But as you can see from this list, the effects of these experiences is not just psychological. Having experienced adversity can quite clearly affect a person’s physical health dramatically.

This data shows the prevalence of ACES across our nation. But it’s based on information collected through telephone surveys and it’s believed to be significantly under-reported. Evidence indicates that at least 78-percent of the US population has experienced at least one traumatic event in their lifetimes. In addition to under-reporting, the difference between statistics is explained by recognizing that the data on this chart only includes events that happen prior to the respondent turning 18, and understanding that ACES only represent one group of potentially traumatic events. There are disparities in the rates of adverse childhood experiences within the population.

Studies routinely show that people living the disability are more likely to have experienced ACEs than the general population. This is important to keep in mind because we know that people with disabilities are also more likely to have involvement with the criminal justice system. The results of the national survey of children’s health show that there are racial disparities as well.

This annual nationwide survey asks parents of children under the age of 18 about ACES experienced by their children. The results show that black children are more likely to have higher ACE scores compared to white children, and black children are overrepresented among children with two or more ACEs.

There’s also evidence that the more ACEs the person experiences, the more they’re at risk for negative outcomes. This is called a dose response, and it’s seen across virtually all areas, including the adoption of risky behaviors, such as alcohol and drug misuse. It’s believed that individual increased their usage of these substances as a means of self-medicating in response to the traumas that they’ve experienced.

So if there are other traumatic events beyond ACEs, what is trauma? The substance abuse and mental health services administration defines trauma having three parts. The experience that happens to the individual. The individual has to believe that it’s physically or emotionally harmful or life-threatening, and it has to have lasting negative effects throughout the individual’s lifetime. The recognition that trauma can be caused by more than just personal events, which are represented in this photo by the tree, resulted in the concept of adverse community environments. We see those situations in the roots of this image.

Traumas can be produced by structural environments, which prevents people in communities for meeting their basic needs. Examples are racism, poverty, or housing. Trauma also extends beyond the individuals who are directly related to, or witnessed or experienced violence. An example of this is someone who lives in a community where a school shooting happened but wasn’t directly affected. If a large portion of the people in their community were, the way the whole community interacts can change, and that can affect the people who weren’t directly involved and might not have known someone who was.

Together, at risk community experiences and adverse community environments are sometimes referred to as the pair of ACEs. We now recognize that natural disasters and climate crisis can also be traumatic, as illustrated on the right-hand side of this image. There are three realms of ACEs that can create traumatic events but intertwined throughout people’s lives and affect the viability of families, communities, organizations, and systems.

Traumas can take on different forms. There are acute traumas, which are usually one-time events like an accident, death of a loved one, weather event or assault. Trauma can also be chronic or occurring over time, such as ongoing abuse or neglect, combat situations, or even multiple unrelated traumas.

Trauma can be incredibly complex, such as repeated uprooting, homelessness, human trafficking, and living as a refugee, or experiencing more than one type of ongoing abuse or neglect. And then there are system induced traumas, such as the removal of the child from a family and placement in foster care, sibling separation, having to testify in court against family, and living in extreme poverty.

We all experienced stress in our lives. If I do the same thing over and over and never change things up, I’m feeling pretty comfortable, but I’m also not learning anything. I’m in my comfort zone. In order to learn something new, I have to step outside that comfort zone, even just a little. When I can do this with a feeling of relative safety, that’s positive stress, and that’s when learning happens.

When those boundaries get pushed even more. And I start spreading further out and feeling as though maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. I get nervous. My heart starts racing. I might get blinders or tunnel vision. I feel as though things might get really messed up, and I’m not happy about being in this position. But if it’s relatively short-lived or I have a person or two to process it with after, I might realize I’m relatively okay. And came through it unscathed. I might even feel as though it wasn’t so bad after all, and I could try it again. That might even make me excited because next time I might not be so nervous because I know I had a good outcome this time. This is called tolerable stress.

It’s when those boundaries get pushed even further to a place where I seriously feel as though I can’t handle it. There’s no end in sight. Or I feel as though my life might be in danger. I have no one to process this with afterwards. That’s toxic stress. Toxic stress is the mechanism by which adversity becomes traumatic. Two people can experience the same thing and it might be traumatic to one and not the other. Genetics has something to do with this because some people have a genetic makeup that protects them from the anxiety and depression, but very frequently the difference is whether the person has a supportive adult to rely on who can buffer the person in what would otherwise be traumatic.

When your brain detects a threat, the amygdala or survival brain releases adrenaline, norephrine, glucose, and cortisol, and it revs up your body and your brain and activates your ‘fight, flight or freeze’ response. At the same time the prefrontal cortex thinking part of your brain assesses the threat and either turns up or down that response. Following trauma, studies show that the amygdala is hyper-reactive and the prefrontal cortex is less activated, so that can result in the person experiencing hyper arousal, hyper vigilance, and increased wakefulness and sleep disruption.

In addition to changes within the brain, experiencing toxic stress can result in other physical changes to a person’s body. This image shows some of these physical impacts, and I’d like to highlight that there’s emerging evidence that suggests that changes to genetic markers may be passed down from generation to generation. That could be one of the causes of what we see as intergenerational trauma.

Let’s talk about trauma as a pathway to crime. What do I mean by that? There’s an undeniable link between childhood trauma, and leader criminality. This has become especially true for people who are convicted of drug and property offenses. We know that people who have experienced trauma are more likely to engage in risky behaviors, including the overuse of alcohol, or the use of other substances. Perhaps as a means of self-soothing or self-medicating. Since we’ve outlawed the use of many of these substances, rather than treat it as a medical concern, it is often a direct pathway to criminality. We also know that many people convicted of property crimes engage in that behavior to increase their ability to acquire illicit substances when other sources are no longer available.

Now that we’ve introduced community complex and system induced traumas, we can look at another finding from the ‘National Survey of Children’s Health’. The survey includes the question: “To the best of your knowledge, has your child ever been treated or judged unfairly because of his or her race or ethnic group?” The results show, the black children who’ve experienced individual discrimination have higher rates of ACEs. This is important to note when we talk about the prison population, because a disproportionate percentage of incarcerated people identify as black.

Here you see the 2018 racial disparities in prison incarceration rates adjusted for population. Why is that? Structural racism. We already talked about how people of color are more likely to experience adverse childhood experiences and that community factors such as poverty, involvement in the child welfare system, and experiencing race can be experienced as trauma.

There’s also a phenomenon called the school to prison pipeline that plays a role in it. Studies show that when children are disciplined at school or in the community, children with disabilities, or who are of color, receive harsher penalties for the same behavior as their white peers. While a white child might have his parents called for tripping another child during recess, the child of color might have to sit out or receive an in-school detention. Over time, students build up a record or reputation of having a behavior problem and their punishments continue to escalate to include suspensions and even expulsions.

As the children age, these attitudes carry over to the juvenile justice system. Children of color are more likely to be arrested by school resource officers and more likely to receive harsher sentences. Statistics show that black people are disproportionately stopped by police on the street, and more likely to be arrested. Black youth are arrested far out of proportion to their share of all youth in the United States. Black people are disproportionately serving life, life without parole, or virtual life sentences. In additional to this, Black and Hispanic people are also more likely to be detained in jails before their trials, because they can’t pay the bail.

And people who are incarcerated report, high rates of childhood trauma. I want to take a moment here to talk about children who grew up with ongoing abuse or neglect on homes with domestic violence. We know that when there’s violence within the home, there’s at least one family member who’s experienced trauma. In families with children, the dynamic is even more complex. Parents living with unresolved trauma are often not available to fully support their children.

Children who grow up with chronic abuse or neglect, don’t learn how to form solid attachments or understand cause and effect. This is because babies and children learn that when they cry, or show a need, a parent satisfies that need. In a home without consistency, children never learned from this basic feedback route.

If a person doesn’t understand the cause-and-effect relationship, they may not understand or be able to predict the consequences of certain actions. This can lead to them behaving and reacting to circumstances, without a clear understanding of why some responses are acceptable, and others are not. This can lead to behaviors that others would describe as poor choices, right up to, and including criminal behaviors.

In addition, parents are supposed to be purveyors of safety. So if they’re not safe, how can a child feel safe in the world? To complicate matters, as they grow children model their relationships off of what they see at home, which can lead to cyclical, intergenerational trauma, and choices that result in criminalized behavior. Another remarkable study of incarcerated men by the Missouri Department of Corrections recorded near universal trauma in adolescence.

In addition to childhood trauma, incarcerated people report high rates of trauma throughout life, as compared to community rates. The sexual trauma rates here are worth noting as frequently homeless youth have high rates of being victimized on the streets.

Incarcerated females appear to have different risk factors for offending than male offenders. Incarcerated females show elevated rates of interpersonal trauma, substance dependence, and associated symptoms of post-traumatic stress thought. One study showed the majority of women in jail experienced multiple types of adversity and interpersonal violence in their lives.

Incarcerated females report greater incidents of mental health problems and serious mental illness than incarcerated males. Women with SMI were more likely to have experienced trauma, to be repeat offenders, and to have earlier onset of substance abuse, and running away. The study found that victimization appears to increase the risk of experiencing mental health problems, which in turn is related to increased likelihood of criminal offending.

We’ve talked about how experiencing trauma can affect a person’s understanding of cause and effect leading to criminal behavior. And about the link between self-medicating and criminality. Another reason for the high rates of trauma among incarcerated individuals maybe because some of the symptoms of trauma can lead to behaviors that we might misinterpret as a person refusing to cooperate. These behaviors can be seen by school officials, police, and other authority figures as non-compliance, which can result in stricter penalties for minor offenses.

Over time, a person can accumulate a record that might lead to longer, harsher sentences. Similarly, there are symptoms of trauma that appear from a hyper-vigilance or constant state of arousal that can be misinterpreted. These can be viewed as though the person that was being intentionally hostile, especially when they’re feeling threatened, and can have a similar impact on a person’s outcomes. There are even symptoms which might be overlooked. The results from a person disengaging, feeling numb or tuning out. So if the person shows no outward signs of distress, authority figures might not suspect the history of trauma.

Now that we understand trauma as a pathway to prison, and its prevalence among inmates, we need to talk about the prison environment itself. There are things that can make a person who has experienced trauma feel as though it’s happening again in the present reality. These are referred to as triggers.

Triggers activate the ‘fight, flight or freeze’ response, and limit access to the higher functions of thought because the person truly believes that their life or wellbeing is in danger. Common triggers include unpredictability, sensory overload, feeling vulnerable or frustrated, confrontation, or experiencing something that reminds the individual of a past traumatic event. Most, if not all of these, are commonplace in traditional correctional facilities.

Common triggers in correctional facilities include constant lighting, and never being able to get a good night’s sleep. Imagine how that would affect your healing and wellbeing, and your ability to regulate your emotions, to interact in a calm manner. Loud noises or doors slamming. I worked in one facility where the doors were so loud, I never got used to it. Even knowing this about the place, when the doors were closed, I jumped almost every single time. Imagine what it would be like to be someone with significant trauma who is required to live there and knows that they can’t move.

A lack of privacy, especially in bathrooms. A fear of victimization. The lack of good touch. All sexual relationships are prohibited even if they’re consensual. In many facilities, there are even rules about touching visitors. In some you can’t touch at all. In others, people who are incarcerated are strictly limited to a hug or short touch upon meeting or leaving. And intrusive body searches. These are especially brutal for individuals who’ve experienced prior sexual victimization.

A growing body of research indicates that solitary confinement in which an inmate is held in isolation and which is used as behavior management technique in prisons is ineffective. It can have negative impacts on mental health. As we’re looking at these effects, it’s important to know that this is no exception to the disproportionality and punishment. Black men and women are overly represented in solitary confinement throughout the nation when compared to the total prison population,

Here you can see some of the harmful psychological effects of long-term solitary confinement. It’s important to note that these effects are magnified for juveniles whose brains are still developing, and people with mental health issues who are estimated to make up one third of all prisoners in isolation.

The rates of violence in the US prisons leads to the further traumatization of inmates. Incarcerated persons may also be pressured to make crimes while in prison. This frequently is related to smuggling or selling drugs or cell phones. They might also feel the need to join or befriend a gang for protection, but this can lead to pressure, to make illegal activities. It’s understandable how these experiences could exasperate the symptoms of trauma or even be traumatic themselves.

All this brings us to considering correctional design with a new mindset. We have to rethink with the trauma informed approach. Recidivism is the likelihood of re-offending. According to the National Institute of Justice, almost 44-percent of the recently released return before the end of their first year out. About 68-percent of individuals released in 30 states in 2005 were arrested for new crime within three years of their release. And 77-percent were arrested within five years. And by year nine, that number reached 83-percent.

In 2004, 17-percent of the people incarcerated in state prisons and 18-percent of people in federal prisons said they committed their current events to obtain money for drugs. Statistics show, these are typically property and drug offenses, not related to violence. We know that drug use is linked to trauma, which prisons worsen. And we know that incarceration is not an effective deterrent against future crime. So it seems we need a new approach for non-violent and drug offenses.

Restorative justice emphasizes repairing the harm caused by criminal behavior. It’s best accomplished through a cooperative process that includes all stakeholders. This can lead to a transformation of people, relationships, and communities. When compared to traditional criminal justice responses, restorative justice programs show promising results of being more effective at achieving victim offender satisfaction, offender compliance with restitution, and decreased recidivism of offenders.

We talked about the possible impacts of trauma. We also mentioned that just because a person experienced trauma does not mean they will experience the negative outcomes or risks associated with that trauma. Resilience is a person’s ability to overcome serious hardship. And building a person’s resilience is the number one way to protect against the risk associated with trauma.

A person’s resilience can be built up over time through consistent supportive relationships and spending time in the positive and sometimes tolerable stress zone. As opposed to prisons, which amplify existing and add new traumas to people incarcerated, the practice of restorative justice, work to build their resilience, which can interrupt and impact the past traumas by lowering the individual’s stress response and giving their system the chance to rest. And it’s in this space that healing can happen.

So in implementing a new mindset for justice, if you must work on prisons, I implore you to mitigate or eliminate as many of the triggering aspects of correctional facilities as possible. However, I urge you to think about correctional design as designing new restorative spaces, not prisons. For it’s here that you can make the greatest impact.

Framing correctional design as designing for restorative spaces gives you the opportunity to move past minimizing potential triggers. You can be on the forefront of a new movement for social justice and equity through the spaces that you design. In creating spaces in which healing can happen, you can be part of reducing recidivism, building resilience, and providing a previously elusive sense of physical and emotional safety. And that is the very epitome of trauma informed design.”

Jana Belack- “Evolution of Correctional Design: Pros & Cons for Future Designs”

“Hello everyone, my name is Jana Belack, and I’m here talking about Transforming Correctional Design for Justice Reform. A little bit about me… I am a lead designer at PlaceTailor here in Roxbury, Massachusetts, and a 2x graduate of the Boston Architectural College. In 2010, I graduated with my Bachelor of Design Studies in Sustainable Design. And then I went on to complete my Master of Architecture in 2016 after completing my thesis, ‘A Women’s Prison; Communities for Incarceration’, which was focused on creating uplifting and supportive community settings for women and their children to end the cycle of incarceration.

In 2017, I was honored to be named the John Worthington Ames Scholar, which allowed me the opportunity to travel to the Scandinavian countries of Finland, Sweden, Norway, and also Ontario, Canada, to experience their positive approach to incarceration. Bringing this knowledge back to the BAC, myself and my co-teacher Rand Lemly created the design workshop ‘Design Convicted’, which teaches students through mixed media, the past present and hopeful future of life without prisons, and instead restorative justice practices.

The most beautiful experiences we have had teaching this topic are when you see a student’s perspective on incarceration change. Once they gain an understanding of the negative impact this has on individuals and society as a whole. At least 2 of our students went on to further explore incarceration through their master’s thesis projects. And this was an incredibly rewarding experience.

What I’m here to present today is a brief overview of the evolution of reform theories and the designs which carried out those ideas over the past 200 years in the United States. Because in order to move on to a successful future, we need to understand the failures of the past. And to also understand what we are working with because many of these buildings are still in use today.

Prior to the 1820s, jails in the United States were single room spaces where men, women, and children were all housed together without guards resulting in complete disorder. Food and clothing was also not provided. To alleviate these miseries, society, looked to the penitentiary ideas of routine and structure for reform. As the penitentiary model proved unsuccessful by the 1860s, new ideas reform based on sociology and psychology were experimented through the reformatory. The panopticon, which was a design by English philosopher Jeremy Bentham in 1791 was first constructed in the United States in 1922.

And in the 1970s, we briefly see correctional centers brought into the urban fabric to reduce travel from distant prisons to the courthouses in the city. And now here we are in 2020 when our incarcerated population is over 1.4 million. It is time for another reform. Two other times to note here are in the 1930s, we see security classifications establish the minimum, the medium, the maximum security, all, established by the crime committed.

And in the 1980s, we see the prison population skyrocket through the war on drugs. The war on drugs was meant to target the kingpins of the drug industry, but in reality, this targeted the low-level offenders of impoverished communities, disproportionately affecting black and brown people.

The 1820s saw the emergence of the penitentiary. This was based on reform ideas of the Pennsylvania Separate System and the Auburn Congregate System. Although they were rivaling designs, they had the common theory that routine and structure would alleviate criminal behaviors and they sought to do this through silence, obedience, and labor.

First looking at the Pennsylvania or the separate system, this was based on continuous solitary confinement, labor in the cells, strict silence, and they were to seek penitence from God for their criminal behaviors. The offender would remain in this space for the entirety of their sentence. As you can see in the diagram below, this is a layout of what the individual cells looked like. The doors were low, so they had to bow before walking into the space. There was a skylight above where they would look up to God and seek penitence. To the left we see a realized version of this cell in the Eastern state penitentiary. And again, you can see here, the skylight, the small door. And for the first time we’re seeing heat and plumbing in a prison facility, which is very uncommon because even in the white house at the time of the construction of the Eastern State Penitentiary, they did not have plumbing and heating.

The Pennsylvania System was realized at the Eastern State Penitentiary in 1829. As you can see in the floor plan to the left, architect John Haviland arranged the solitary cells and outdoor spaces in a radial pattern. The pink wing notes where now female offenders are being separated from the males. To the right, we see what the Eastern State Penitentiary looks like today as it is now a national historic landmark. The original plan called for single level floor plan so that each individual cell would have a skylight and an outdoor space, but due to overcrowding by the time of construction ending they added additional wings of two or three levels to house additional offenders.

Now looking at the Auburn or the Congregate System, this was based on solitary confinement at night, congregate labor during the day, and a strict rule of silence, similar to the Eastern State Penitentiary or the Pennsylvania System. Because of this new program, the individual cells were allowed to be much smaller because the offender would only be in here at night for sleep and they would leave for the day to go work in groups.

The images shown here are from Kingston Penitentiary in Canada, which is a replica of the Auburn System. To the left is a replicant in the museum showing what the original cells would look like. But by 1895, these single cells were expanded, and two individual small cells were made into one cell expanding them to 7-feet by 7.5-feet. To the right, we see a corridor in front of the cells showing how light got into the spaces. And you can see in the ceiling where it is ribbed that each rib was an individual cell.

We first see the Auburn Plan realized at the Auburn State Penitentiary in New York. Prior to the Auburn System coming to this prison, we had a one room jail, which housed men, women, and children, but in 1821, the Auburn System of the rectangular prison was built on this site. Similar to the Eastern State Penitentiary, we now see women being separated from men, but in a different way. At the Auburn State Penitentiary women were housed in cramped attic spaces with the windows blacked out so they could not spread their deviant behavior to those on the outside or the other men within the facility. Women were seen as the double deviant at this time, because not only were they committing crimes, they were not upholding their duties as a woman.

The successes of the penitentiary are few. Violence is minimized by separating individuals into their own cells, but it was not eliminated. Violence occurred when the rule of silence was broken, and physical punishments happened. Although basic life needs were met at the penitentiary, food and clothing were provided and heating and plumbing was provided at the Eastern State Penitentiary.

The failures are more common, long sentences quickly led to overcrowding. Violent punishments were common due to past theories that punishment would alleviate criminal behaviors. The design of the spaces caused severe mental, emotional, physical degradation most notably through the use of solitary confinement. And what resulted, there was no effect on crime rates. Nothing was actually done to promote reform in these facilities.

Seeing the failures of reducing criminal behaviors and the negative mental impact on those incarcerated through the use of the penitentiary, performance in the 1860s sought new theories of reform through social work and psychology. They used education, vocation and recreation as the basis for the reformatory.

Ideas of the reformatory included crime is an illness. So punishment is no longer going to reform criminal behaviors. Psychology and sociology come into play. Psychiatrists are now employed at the facilities and guards will receive training. Smaller populations address the individual’s needs. Design is meant to simulate a home life and a life outside of prison, connecting those with society. Nurseries are now common in the women’s reformatories so that the children stay with mothers and maintained familial bonds. There are no walls, fences or security devices. Now we are also seeing that those incarcerated have a voice in how it’s operated because they elected offenders within the facility to speak for them with guards and caseworkers when making decisions. And now indeterminant sentencing is also a new theory. Release is based on achievements and self-improvement, not a specified amount of time.

The reformatories for men were commonly called community prisons. And a great example of this is the Norfolk Prison Colony from 1932. This was a college campus style design where there was dormitories rather than cells and outdoor quad, auditorium and classroom learning, very similar to a college campus. The smaller populations of 50 men per dormitory allowed for individual needs being addressed. And there was no walls, fences, or security devices. The Norfolk Prison Colony still operates today, but it is now the Norfolk Correctional Center. And it’s very common to a modern prison.

A great model of the reformatories for women were the state farms. A great example, being the State Farm for Women at Niantic, in Niantic Connecticut, opening in 1918. This model was meant to teach women education, reading, and writing, cultural aspects, arts, and basically uplift them to resume their duties in society.

This was a cottage-style design, a self-sustaining farm, where the women gardened and basically grew their own food and maintained animals. There was a nursery in this facility for the women to stay with their children to maintain those familial bonds. And again, there’s no walls, fences, or security devices. They strongly urge the connection to nature, with the adjacent lake, Bride Lake, which was located beside this prison where women often swam and used for recreation. This prison is still in operation today, but it is now called the York Correctional Institution. And similar to the Norfolk Prison Colony, it has transformed into a modern prison.

Here we see the floor plans for the State Farm for Women at Niantic. The second level shows individual bedrooms for the twenty-one females who would live here. And on the ground floor, we see common spaces of the kitchen, dining room, and living room which would simulate their homelife.

The successes at the reformatory were many more than at the penitentiary. Staff and group elected counsel, representing those incarcerated, realized that cooperation is much more successful than opposition. The smaller populations encouraged and supported meaningful personal connections and heightened morale.

There was more opportunity at the reformatory for education, training, recreation, and varied treatment programs, which address individual needs and created opportunities post-incarceration. Failures of the reformatory came from criticisms and opposition from politicians and prison guards who did not see eye to eye with the case workers trying to support the goals of the reformatory.

Punishment was continued as this was a past theory that continued into the reformatory that punishment would alleviate criminal behavior, and security above all won out. Though very minimal, escapes did happen, and security took precedent. And all in all, without all of these theories of the reformatory being supported, the whole system failed. Caseworkers were not properly trained, and guards were also not properly trained to support the ideals of the reformatory.

In 1922, we see Jeremy Bentham’s idea of the Panopticon from 1791 realized in the United States. This was based on the idea of control through surveillance, solitary confinement, and labor. Very similar to the early ideas we see from the penitentiary. But this came to the United States much later.

The Panopticon was Jeremy Bentham’s theory of observance. Meaning that, as long as you’re being watched or think you’re being watched, you will behave appropriately. This model was based on continuous solitary confinement, labor in the cell, and controlling behavior through constant surveillance.

As you see in the floor plan here, and the image to the left, there’s a guard in the tower, but those incarcerated don’t know if they’re being watched or not, but the possibility that they are, controls their behavior.

The Panopticon was first realized in the United States in 1922 at the Stateville Correctional Center in Stateville, Illinois. This was called the round house or the F house. The result of this design is poor acoustics, very loud echoes happen throughout this space. It is mentally and emotionally degrading because they are constantly feeling like they are being watched. And it was an antiquated design. Safety and operational hazards occurred and led to the shutdown of this facility. The F house remains built due to its historical significance. And it actually reopened in 2020 to create social distancing for COVID 19 for those incarcerated.

In the 1970s, we see a brief experiment in bringing high rise carceral facilities to the urban context through the MCCs or Metropolitan Correctional Centers. This was based on the idea of humane design in the urban context. But in reality, these prisons look very similar to any other facility outside of the city. The only difference is they build up rather than build out, but this is due to the constraints of urban development.

The Chicago MCC, which is actually a jail rather than a prison, it is more of a short-term facility, by architect Harry Weese, is a great example of this theory of bringing correctional centers into the urban context. Hidden in plain sight, many people walking down the street would not realize this is a prison. The Chicago MCC is a 28-story triangular footprint and the individual cells inside were modeled on boat cabins with built-in furniture and tall narrow windows.

The image at the center of this slide shows the circulation opportunities that those incarcerated might experience during their stay here. They will not hit the ground plane and their only connection to the outdoors is the rooftop exercise yard. The result of the Metropolitan Correctional Centers, they do reduce travel costs from distant prisons to the courthouse when those incarcerated need to travel. But they were designed to be hidden in plain sight, that sort of disguise, not allowing the public around them to know that they are there. This is a missed opportunity to engage those incarcerated with the surrounding community and the amenities that it has to offer in education, healthcare, and social interactions.

Over the past 200 years, we have witnessed several designs for prisons promising reform, but they have all resulted in simply detaining those incarcerated until the end of their sentence. Mostly due to overcrowding, the reform theories could not keep up with growing populations. In response to this growing population the individual prisons have been combined over the time, creating large complexes.

Seen here is the New Jersey State Prison, which is actually America’s oldest operational prison opened in 1798 and operating today. You can see how over time different additions have been added. You can see the Auburn rectangular plan, the Pennsylvania system of the radial plan, and a modern addition to the bottom of the complex. This all designed to house 1200 individuals.

We see the same trend happening across the country, from California to Michigan to Louisiana. Louisiana happens to be the largest corrections complex in the country where over 5,000 people reside here. Our need to over incarcerate has led to 2,292 federal and state prison facilities being built in the United States housing over 1.4-million people.

Looking at prisons over the past 200 years, the failures are in the one size fits all approach. What works for one person may not work for another and each period of reform focused on helping one type of person, excluding the reformatory period. The penitentiary has failed in the solitary confinement, silence, penitence, long sentences and large populations. Punishment has resulted in physical, mental and emotional degradation. Opposition between guards and caseworkers has deterred reformatory practices from being successful. And separating those incarcerated from their support systems on the outside leads to higher recidivism rates.

The successes, though minor, the lowered amount of violence from separating individuals into separate cells and meeting basic life needs, food and clothing being provided. But the big successes over the prisons of the past 200 years came in the reformatory ideals. Joint responsibility, individualized programs, small populations, positive spaces, opportunity, variety in program and design to fit more than just the one size fits all, heightened morale, and addressing the traumas of criminal behaviors.

Reform Now- it is 2020, and we are looking for new ideas of reform. So why don’t we learn from the past, take the successes and get rid of the failures. Revive and modernize the reformatory theories. Creating community style settings rather than isolating institutions will reflect the successful aspects of the reformatory, but we need to ensure proper training for staff and commit to the goal of addressing individual needs rather than strict security.

Ideas we can take from the reformatory are: joint responsibility, so everyone has a say; individualized programs to address each person’s needs; self-improvement; small populations; connections with society are critical; and also is variety. Aspects for the design will include simulating a community modeled on the world outside of prison to alleviate the need to integrate with society upon release. Continual support during and after incarceration and indeterminant sentencing, release being based on achievements. All this can be done with cooperation and respect between all parties involved.

One very difficult aspect we have to overcome is the separation we have created between carceral facilities and society. 53.2-percent of those incarcerated are 100 to 500 miles from home. Of those people, 25.9 will receive visits. According to the Minnesota Department of Corrections, the average recidivism rate after one year of release is 43.3-percent. We can see a reduction of 13- to 25-percent in this recidivism rate when visitation from friends and family occurs.

In one of the most extreme instances I have found through my research is the Saguaro Correctional Center. This private prison is located in Arizona, but it’s contracted for the state of Hawaii due to land constraints on the Islands. In an article by the Marshall Project, a family of three discusses the difficulty in staying connected to loved ones incarcerated here. According to the Marshall Project, 1,391 Hawaiians are incarcerated in Saguaro. To travel to Saguaro to visit a loved one is over 8-thousand miles round trip. And the cost is over 2,000-dollars. Often times this can only happen one year at the most.

As I previously mentioned, I’ve visited Scandinavia to experience their positive approach to incarceration. And I’m aware that we cannot simply pick up their model and drop it into the United States expecting the same results. But there are many aspects I believe would translate. The first being, maintaining a ‘sense of self’ while incarcerated. The first day that I was in Finland meeting with the criminal sanctions agency, I referred to those incarcerated as inmates. They stopped me, and said, ‘we do not call those incarcerated inmates, we call them clients, because we as a society have failed them and it is our job to improve them’.

Next, traveling on to Sweden, I posed the question the first day that I met with the criminal sanctions agency there, I said, do you refer to those incarcerated as clients or inmates or those incarcerated, what do you refer to them as? And they looked at me strangely and said, we call them by their name. They simply call them by their name.

The second aspect we could bring back to the United States is simulating a normal lifestyle, which is what we have talked about with the reformatory. In Scandinavia, the loss of freedom is the only punishment. The third aspect is meaningful experiences. Also something that is present in the reformatory model, positive environments and interactions between staff and clients occurred daily.

One aspect that I believe really would maintain familial bonds is a reprieve. In the open prisons in Scandinavia, they’re allowed time away, maybe a weekend, to spend time with family and friends and really get a chance for a mental and emotional escape of incarceration.

While I was at Halden Prison, I spoke to this man in the picture playing the guitar, Sam Tax, and I spoke with him at length in his recording studio about the situation of prisons in Scandinavia versus the United States. And he said to me, this quote, “you must take this to America, treat people with respect and they will not be mean. if you give respect, you will get respect.” And this picture is Sam Tax and his band, which is guards at Halden Prison playing in the restaurant at Halden Prison.

I’ll leave you with this image from Vanaja Vankila, a women’s prison in Finland, which is designed to simulate a community style living and has proven successful, and there are very low recidivism rates.”

Dana McKinney- “The Future of Corrections with Urban Design in Mind”

“Before I get started, I just kind of want to introduce how I kind of fit into this conversation. While I was in my masters at the GSD, I decided to study the carceral system as my focus for my thesis, my architecture thesis. Having been working a lot in advocacy, in Black Lives Matter, in the NAACP and in the city of Boston I really wanted to focus on something that was extraordinarily emotional, relevant to me and my own family’s legacy and history, as well as something that I think would challenge myself, but not just myself, but also the university to look at issues that are kind of more socially oriented. And so, this is my thesis from that time called ‘Societal Simulations, A Carceral Geography of Restoration’.

So I wanted to go to the city that inspired me to become an architect and urban planner in the first place, which is Newark, New Jersey. Newark sits about nine miles from Manhattan, just for context. And it’s a historically black and brown city also known as the brick city. So this is the home that my mother and her siblings and my grandparents grew up in. It’s in a very nice neighborhood with tree-lined streets. It’s near one of the city’s more major parks.

However, as a child, I would go back and forth from my house, growing up in Connecticut, to this home in New Jersey. And to get to this house, when you get off the highway, you have to go through a city that is otherwise heavily blighted. And seeing that sort of discrepancy between the environment that my grandparents were in, the one that I was in at home, and the ones that just immediately surrounded their little haven, it really inspired me to look into architecture and the interface of architecture and planning.

So why Newark? Newark to me is sort of the telltale story of industrialized cities, or post-industrialized cities rather. And so the city, like many others in the East coast, really became to diversify in the 1900s, when, there’s a huge influx of immigration from Europe. And so this is just a map showing the different sort of ethnic racial pockets that started to establish over the city in that time period.

At one point in the 1930s, 1940s, the city really started to become like a bustling hub and almost served as a twin city to New York, really supporting financial services, especially such as insurance. And it also had one of the largest ports in the country. However, like most American cities Newark was, I guess you can say, influenced by red lining. And so, there were significant swats of the city that only white residents were able to acquire property on. And most black and brown residents were then relegated to sort of these outer corners of the city.

In 1967, similar to other major cities at the time, there was a series of race riots. The main one took place over three days and resulted in significant damage of the downtown center, which again was sort of this twin to Manhattan. And as you can see in the next slide, it really resulted insignificant white flight. And so what’s sad about Newark is that it used to have like a huge amount of diversity across like, ethnic groups near Europe. You had blacks and browns people, but after that point, there was a significance of white flight.

And with that came sort of the incarceration of this urban condition itself. This is an example of a public housing development in the city, not too far from downtown. If you go to this development, there’s one way in, and one way out. The entire development has other gates, though, all of which have been padlocked closed. So, you would imagine this could have numerous implications in terms of fire hazards and life safety, but instead, this is how they treat a lot of the low-income residents.

There has been a lot of significance of blight, such as fires and graffiti and homes like this are spread throughout the entire city’s landscape. And that’s what stood out to me was that it feels like the city had given up on itself. And had prepared its population to be incarcerated. There there’s very little separation between the two. An example of the brick and the CMUs, this barbed wire, the chain linked fence and the graffiti. Again, this is everywhere across the city’s landscape. Incidents of gunshots going through windows. And again, barbed, I mean, having the plywood backing, it’s just a depressed environment and it feels like the prisons that surround it.

So here’s one of those prisons that surrounds it, the Northern State Prison. So this is one of the larger facilities for the state of New Jersey holding about 25-hundred people right now. You go to the next slide; you can see that it actually stands right next to Newark International Airport. But also sits kind of opposite the highway or opposite the train tracks from the waste management facility. So if you were to go onsite, you would smell all the waste that’s being processed on that facility. And for people who aren’t allowed to leave on a regular basis, it’s a pretty oppressive environment.

The city of Newark also houses one of the county’s juvenile detention facilities. And I’m sure some of you are aware, but for those who are not, juvenile detention has been kind of increasingly getting smaller, which is a good thing, kind of a recognition of the sort of detriment that juvenile detention has on people.

And this facility is interesting because it sits very close to downtown and it’s opposite a charter school and relative to a lot of other sort of residential spaces. And so it’s, I think it’s kind of harrowing for the youth that live in the neighborhood because they’re constantly aware of this sort of prospect of being incarcerated in a facility like this.

So with this urban condition in mind, 1-in-4 residents in Newark, New Jersey have a lifetime likelihood of being incarcerated. If you just let that sit in for a second, that’s pretty heavy. And this, it’s all part of a bigger system. It’s all part of the American carceral system. And so for bigger perspective, everyone should know that there’s 7.3-million people who are in the carceral system. There are four parts of that system, one being prisons and jails, so that’s incarceration, and then community supervision, being probation and parole.

Over time, so this is sort of the, the landscape of the carceral system. Over time that, those numbers have exploded, especially as a result of sort of things like the sentencing reform act, the war on crime, the war on drugs, the three strikes policies. Sort of in the early Obama administration, and there was a lot of federal pressure to sort of start decarcerating, especially among youth. But with that decarceration, there’s a whole litany of issues of what do you do with those facilities?

As an example, in the State of Connecticut, there are about fifty kids who are currently incarcerated in their juvenile detention system. To keep just those fifty kids in at a time it’s about a million dollars a year. So with fewer kids in the system, it’s great, but the cost to keep them in there is exponentially greater.

And this is just a breakdown of state, federal, and local jails, as well as juveniles facilities and, other facilities such as immigration detention. A lot of people think it’s just violent crime, but there’s also a huge proportion of drug and property and public order offenses.

And just another lifetime likelihood. It is, you cannot talk about incarceration without linking it to race and ethnicity. And so, there’s a 1-in-3 lifetime likelihood of black men to go, to, to be incarcerated. And 1-in-18 for black women. We should note that for black women especially that is the population that is growing the fastest currently. And there are repercussions of this for family destabilization, especially because you’re ripping away a lot of times, mothers from their children, mothers from caretaking for their adult older parents. But this is also an issue, an imbalance for Latin X men and women.

As we said earlier in this talk, 76.6-percent of people recidivise within five years, that is absurd. Given the cost that we are spending to supposedly rehabilitate people, the system is not working and we should all acknowledge that what we have right now is broken and it’s functionally flawed.

So, I want it to look at what the alternative could be. And I knew for one, I didn’t want it to be a prison. I think that the prison system as a whole is flawed, as I just said. And I think that we need to think about more innovative approaches that allow people to be, to remain in their communities, to keep family stabilized and to also stabilize communities, such as Newark.

And I approached the project by thinking about it as a village for restoration and inoculation for recidivism. The next slide basically walks you through all the things of spatially, aesthetically, materiality of what is currently versus what I aspire to in the future. And just the main things to think about are warmth, brightness, ecology, freedom, advancement. These are all metrics of, for me, what success could be in this new system. I want to focus on Newark again, because it was the space that inspired me to be an architect. And I want to focus on Baxter Terrace, highlighted here in orange. This particular site is the site of the first public housing project in the city of Newark.

If you go to the next slide you’ll see, it was this awful brick development built in 1941, which was actually segregated by floor plan. So by floor plate rather, every other floor. So black, white, black, for example. And then the facility was eventually torn down in 2012 because it was overrun by issues of sex trafficking and drugs and gang violence. And has subsequently just stayed vacant in the city. It’s a pretty significant parcel and it’s relatively close to downtown, but it’s kind of has this, people don’t really want to touch it. No developer has really proposed any efforts on it since then.

And so, I wanted to create a model that was the village, but the village has three major components, one of rehabilitation, which is restorative justice for me, empowerment. So including places of employment, as well as activities, because everybody deserves to have fun in my opinion, and security through housing. A lot of times we see that in recidivism people are actually getting picked up and going back to a jail or prison because they’re unable to secure housing. And housing insecurity in general in major cities is a huge concern. And so I just think that it’s important to allow somebody to properly rehabilitate that they have to feel secure in their environment.

I’m going to walk you through some of the design that I had done for this project. So this is the ground floor plan, as you can see. I was really hoping to not create something that would feel like it stigmatized the residents of the facility. And for one, it was important to maintain a street wall, cause that’s how the rest of the city is. And once you enter the site and once you become a resident of this facility, that’s when this sort of, the rigidity of the community starts to break down and it starts to open up to landscape and the amenities.

On the ground floor. I also want to place a host of retailers as well as places of employment. It was really important to find companies and organizations that don’t have that box that says, have you committed a felony offense? A lot of times at a discriminatory metric on a lot of applications. So I went through and found a bunch of companies that don’t currently have that question. As you’ll get further in the presentation though, you’ll also see that it was an opportunity to insert these spaces for restorative justice.

So the residential component of the building was pretty multifaceted. I wanted it to be an opportunity for people of different family structures to be able to reside on the site. If someone who lives alone, they could get a single room occupancy or a 1-bedroom apartment. If you have a family of four, you could get a 2-bedroom or 3-bedroom unit. If you are an intergenerational family, there are units up to 7 bedrooms that could have, like, house grandma, grandpa, mom, dad, and kids.

It was really important that there is this flexibility and that you would not separate families just because there was an issue within the, an interaction with the justice system. And then as you move up the building, the setbacks increase from the interior courtyard, so that you enter, allow more light to enter the units as well as changing the typologies as well.

So here’s just an exterior view of the site. Again, I’m not looking for this to be revolutionary on the outside. I just want it to somewhat blend in, have some nice features. I was imagining this sort of articulated brick pattern. But again, you’re also not too far from New York. So like when you’re standing on the site, you actually have an amazing view of lower Manhattan.

As you go into the site. There is a public promenade that starts to really insert opportunities for ecology. There’s a huge linkage to trauma and the benefit of green space, light, open air, water, and I want to integrate, integrate elements like that throughout the campus, or the village. So there’s a whole host of trees and tall grasses and water features.

There’s also an amphitheater. This is largely to help, afford people the opportunity to celebrate the arts, to celebrate opportunities to be together, and to just have moments of relief in their lives. Because a lot of the times when people are being incarcerated, It’s because of stressors. It’s because of the trauma that they’ve experienced in the past. And just the view of what that amphitheater could look like. I’m actually imagining each of the terraces being grassed, just to provide more comfort, as well as more greenery in the space.

A multi-purpose room. When I was doing this project, I actually kind of conducted little focus groups in the city. And one of the things that people talked about was that there wasn’t really a great space to have a party. There wasn’t a really great space to have a quincenara or a wedding or even a community meeting. And so to have an open space directly onsite where residents could have their weddings, could have their kids’ birthday parties, or where they could have meetings, and really facilitate onsite engagement was really important. And this is a sort of like this concrete and glass volume that’s sitting over a water feature. So you can see just the volume right there.

And then the last component of the project is the restorative justice. So again, just to remind everybody restorative justice is this practice in which you bring together the person who has committed the crime, or who’s been convicted of the crime, the victim of the crime, as well as the community. And so I wanted to create spaces for this activity, exclusively for the residents of the site, that they can then invite others in to participate in this practice.

And so I’m just going to run you through a few of the different ones that I had designed for the site. This is called the mounds. And again, it’s really an opportunity to integrate landscape, architecture, and the practice of restorative justice.

Stripes. Radial. A few of them like this one, actually, they are trying to also create levels of variance, but they also can be used as sort of open space to be used on a regular basis. So maybe you have a booking system, for 9 to 5, it’s used for restorative justice and before and after hours, it can just be used for people to take picnics and whatnot.

Pond. So this one’s actually has a view that directly overlooks a small pond on the site.

The labyrinth. I chose a labyrinth as one of the main ones to focus on just because labyrinths are used as a spiritual practice, and acknowledging the spirituality of many people in the community. It’s also a way to meditate. And so I wanted to create these spaces that people can have self-reflection or they could have an opportunity to kind of, become one with the earth, become one with themselves. Next you can see of you, what that looks like. And the labyrinth actually has trees that are kind of scattered throughout the space itself.

Hilltop. And this is me kind of thinking about MLK’s speech about surmounting the Hilltop. But I want, and also just creating a different perspective for people, so really bringing people up into space. If you go to the next slide, so that they can then see a tree canopy below. There aren’t a lot of trees in the city unless you’re fortunate enough to live in a certain neighborhood. And so to really have opportunities for people to become, to interact with that landscape within their own home environment as well.

Walls, which is an exterior space. And it’s also to acknowledge that there is a lot of street art in the community. If you go to the next slide, it’s half restorative justice space, half gallery. And so you can invite residents to do exhibitions and actually use the walls as opportunities to display their art.

And Flower Field. This particular one is probably my favorite. And during one of the focus groups I was doing, one of the ladies I was talking to was talking about how she just missed all the flowers that she grew up seeing. She missed the rose gardens in her grandmother’s backyard. And someone was like, ‘Oh, my grandma had a rose garden’. And I was like, ‘my grandmother used to have a rose garden’. And so to have color and an opportunity to like, really see the seasonality, and kind of depress yourself within that color, and that ecology.

Next slide. Let’s see. It’s frozen on my end. anyone else?

Janet: Yeah, it’s frozen here.

Dana: Okay, well. It’s okay. That was basically the end of my presentation.”

References:

Deanna Van Buren Ted Talk

QUOTES:

“We sometimes forget that emotional safety is as precious as physical safety,

“You must take this to America…treat people with respect and they will not be mean.

BAC Talk: Trauma-Informed Educational Design in a Post-Pandemic Environment (Season 1, Episode 7) Read More »

Photo May 24, 5 04 40 PM (1)BAC Talk- June 10, 2020

“Trauma-Informed Design: A Look at Educational Environmental Design in a Post-Pandemic Environment”This webinar discussion is a combined effort by Inclusive Designers Podcast and the Boston Architectural College (BAC). Our panel explores the role of designers in providing safe and sustainable futures in educational environments and an exploration of offering design solutions to social inequities. Our talk focused specifically on K-12.

Moderators:

Panelists:

Video:

So welcome to Trauma-Informed Design with a little twist about education about K through 12. First, I want to thank Mahesh and the board of trustees and Don Hunsicker, Eliza, the Alumni Council and Kristin Hansen for making this all work. And of course, I could not have done this without the DHH, which is Design for Human Health program at the BAC, and without Davis Harte. We’ve worked really hard to get you a really great program today. Again, my name is Janet. Janet Roche of Janet Roche Designs. I would like to think that that was quite inspired. And I’m also on the alumni council and I am the class of 2016. I’m also a BAC instructor. I’ll be your host today.

And also, what we are doing today is that we are recording live for the first time for my podcast, which is called Inclusive Designers. And we will have a whole bunch, we will have this recording, both audio and also visual, up for the first time on our website, which is InclusiveDesigners.com. And we will, also what we always do on our on our website is put down references and resources for you to go back to and look at so that you can help your own clients. So with that, I have to read my notes, otherwise I will go completely off script and it will take way too long.

So anyway, so I just wanted to start off by acknowledging the fact that we live in very unusual times and we live in really kind of unusual times of great stress and really trauma. And kids aren’t just affected by the pandemic. And now the subsequent violence and protests and all the visuals that we’re seeing with that, it’s been really, it’s been hard for everybody. Today, I saw an article from that was talking about Mt. Sinai, and Mt. Sinai is a hospital, and they’ve created some calming and safe spaces using varying images of Biophilia to help reregulate the medical personnel that are going through so much. So even though we go, and we joke a lot about things like the she shed, and the man cave, we all really need places to reregulate ourselves. Right. And whether it’s just a room in your house, you call it the she shed, or you call it the man cave or whatever.

So with that, I’d like you to also think when we go through this program, I’d like you to think about the fact that, you know, you could be doing a lot of different things for also your employees. Right. And it doesn’t just have to be K through 12. We’re also talking about higher education. We’re talking about the BAC. We’re talking about all the other schools out there as well as workplaces. And how can we do that to make things better for everybody? You help people to feel safer and calmer and be able to kind of reregulate themselves. And I would be kind of remiss. It was interesting. When we start first putting out this program, we knew we needed to talk about social inequities. And it was just, that was three weeks ago. And I kept thinking to myself, how are we going to kind of put that into the component? Because it’s such an important part. But on the flip side, we were, we have so much information to get to and we were afraid that we were going to kind of run out of time. But lo and behold, here came all these, you know, protests and stuff like that. So, we have a great platform for you today to talk about that. So with that, Eliza, can you put up the agenda, please?

So, what we’re going to do is I’m going to introduce you to Mary Jo Cooper, who is going to be my co-host today. For those of you who listen to my podcast, you’ll recognize her. She’s already been a guest, as has Davis. Davis will be presenting a little bit later. But Mary Jo is going to help me walk through everybody’s presentation and what we’re going to be looking at. Before we begin, I just want to talk about two things real quick, and I think they’re important. First things first. I mean, right now I’m seeing a little sign in front of me, in front of my face that says, ‘Eliza Wilson has requested you to turn off your web cam’. So, there has been some technical difficulties. you know we’re just going to try to be kind and kind to ourselves and realize that, you know, we’re kind of all in this together and we’re trying to all figure it out. And that also includes these types of platforms. Right. So there’s that. And then also, I don’t know if you kind of noticed, I’m a little anxious. This is our first time on video. We usually do this, obviously just audio because it’s usually podcast format.

I’ve had quite a bit of coffee today, so I want to start off just with a quick simple, we were going to, what we’re going to offer to you whether or not you would like to stand, because it’s three o’clock and some of you probably have been here all day. If you would like to stand, take a moment and breathe a little bit and take a breath in through the nose and out through the mouth, do it a couple of times. You can do it with me. Okay. Ready? In through the nose. Out through the mouth. in through the nose, out through the mouth, in through the nose, out through the mouth. Little things like that can make a big difference in everybody’s lives. So anyways, so that’s my intro and I’m going to start off and introduce Mary Jo Cooper. Hi, Mary Jo. Can you tell, tell us a little bit about who you are, I know who you are, but…

Mary Jo: So, I’m the vice president of Long-Term Support Services at Bay Cove Human Services, which is a multi-service agency in Boston, Human Service Agency. I oversee programs for people with developmental or intellectual disabilities, residential day, family support, individual support, that sort of stuff. Community based programs.

Janet: Very nice. Terrific. So, what we’ve decided to do today, right, Mary Jo, is that you and I are going to talk a little bit about what we’re going to go see, what kind of videos. Some of them are videotaped. Some of them are going to go live. And you and are going to go and introduce everybody. Why don’t you give us a little overview of what we are going to be?

Mary Jo: So, Christine is going to talk about trauma and just sort of the basic principles. Angela then is going to talk about sort of the overview in terms of communities and from policy standards and from, she’s a school psychologist, so from that standpoint as well. Davis is going to be our academic, our real academic, with a lot of theory that’s evidence-based, that kind of pulls everything together. And then Sophie is going to talk about actual putting everything kind of the theoretical pieces that has talked about so far into practice at the McCormack School in Boston.

Janet: So, Mary Jo, let’s kick it off, who do we have first…

Mary Jo: Christine, and Christine is going to talk, Christine is going to talk about trauma. Basic trauma. Christine is the senior policy analyst for Trauma Informed Consultant. She’s the owner of Trauma Informed Partnerships. And she can be reached at [email protected]. So, Christine.

Janet: Christine, take it away.

Christine: Hello. My name is Christine Cowart, and I’m going to talk about what trauma is and why it matters, especially in relation to design. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration defines trauma as having three parts: an experience that happens to an individual; the individual has to believe that just physically or emotionally harmful or life-threatening; and it has to have lasting negative effects on the individual throughout time. In 1998, a medical practice in California noticed that some of their patients were doing significantly better than others with seemingly similar backgrounds. They identified 10 common characteristics that one experienced as a child could result in poor health outcomes. We refer to these as Adverse Childhood Experiences or ACEs for short. ACEs can have lasting negative impacts throughout a person’s life, including increased injury; effects or mental or maternal health; increased infections and chronic disease; the adoption of risky behaviors; and loss of opportunities. I want to stress that this is risk, not certainty. There are a lot of things that can impact how a person is affected by adversity, including exercise; life choices; personal relationships; and therapy. But as you can see from this list, the effects of these experiences is not just psychological. Having experienced adversity can quite clearly affect a person’s physical health dramatical.

This data shows the prevalence of ACEs across our nation, but it’s based on information collected through telephone surveys and is believed to be significantly under reported. Evidence indicates that at least 78-percent of the U.S. population has experienced at least one traumatic event in their lifetimes. As we know from the definition of trauma, ACEs do not come close to encompassing all forms of trauma. The recognition that trauma can be caused by more than personal events resulted in the concept of adverse community environments.

So let’s talk about our current situation. We’re all experiencing isolation, which can magnify depression and lead to suicidal ideation. We’re all more confined. Kids might be confined to unsafe homes and not have interaction with others who could intervene. Most of the interaction kids are currently getting is coming through screens, which means they’re much more likely to see the really disturbing images and videos of current events, including police violence and the resulting unrest and protests. Kids are feeling out of control and may not have anyone with whom to process these feelings or what they’re seeing. Kids are feeling loss, both concrete and ambiguous, which is harder to define and harder to ask for help about.

We all experience stress in our lives. If I do the same thing over and over again, and never change it up, I’m feeling comfortable, but I’m also not learning anything. This is my comfort zone. In order to learn something new. I have to step outside my comfort zone. When I can do this with a feeling of relative safety, that’s Positive Stress. This is where learning happens. When those boundaries get pushed even more, I get nervous. My heart starts racing. In my case, I get blinders or tunnel vision. I feel really uncomfortable. And as though things might end quite badly. But if it’s a relatively short-lived experience or if I have someone to process the event with, might be okay. This is Tolerable Stress. But when those boundaries get pushed even further to a place where I seriously feel as though I can’t handle it and there’s no end in sight, or I feel as though my life may be in danger, and I have no one to process it with, that’s Toxic Stress. Toxic Stress is the mechanism by which adversity becomes traumatic.

Two people might experience the same thing and it might be traumatic to one and not to the other. Genetics has something to do with this because people have certain genetic makeups that protect them from anxiety or depression. Very frequently, however, the difference is whether the person has a supportive adult to rely on to buffer the person from what would otherwise be a traumatic. Toxic Stress activates your Fight, Flight, or Freeze response. When this happens repeatedly over time, changes occur in your brain that result in an exaggerated stress response to situations that can lead to hyperarousal, hypervigilance, increased wakefulness and sleep disruption. In addition to changes within the brain, experiencing Toxic Stress can result in other physical changes to one’s body.

This image shows just some of these physical impacts. There are things that can make a person who has experienced trauma feel as though it’s happening again in the present reality. These are referred to as triggers. Common triggers include unpredictability, sensory overload, feeling vulnerable or frustrated, confrontation or experiencing something that reminds them of the trauma that originally occurred. We talked about the possible impacts of trauma and mentioned that just because a person experienced something does not mean they’ll experience the negative outcomes or risks associated with that event.

Resilience is a person’s ability to overcome a serious hardship, and the number one way to protect against the risks associated with trauma. Trauma-informed design is about integrating the principles of trauma-informed care into design with the goal of creating physical spaces that promote safety, well-being, and healing. This requires realizing how the physical environment affects identity, worth and dignity and how it promotes empowerment. Environments have the ability to increase or reduce our stress by anticipating and mitigating potential triggers. You can create spaces in which children stress systems can rest and they can find peace. In this peace, they can form supportive relationships with adults. Adults who can challenge them and support them through learning, which happens in the Positive Stress zone. This will not only improve their academic learning but will help build their resilience over time. Trauma-informed design gives you the opportunity to minimize potential triggers and calm the stress responses of people who use the space. This can buffer their experiences and build their resilience, giving them a previously elusive sense of physical and emotional safety. Well, what an amazing gift that would be.

Janet: Christine. You’re so incredible about being able to condense everything in an incredible way to make everything just very accessible and very understandable. So we’re going to throw in a little poll… So how likely are you, how likely are you to mention trauma-informed design in the next six months? So, if you get a chance, if you’d like to hit it. It could be: Not at all. Somewhat. Likely. Mostly. Definitely. My guess is, right now you’re starting to think about it because that’s also why you’re here, right? Can we get Mary Jo back up on the screen, Eliza, please? Hi, Mary Jo. Thanks for coming back. Mary Jo listen, so, so what were your takeaways from that, and Christine should be joining us, too.

Mary Jo: So, I think… it was, it was great Christine, thank you. The takeaways for me were that the ACEs or the Adverse Childhood Experiences are really impacted by social determinants of health. In particular, for me, the takeaway was around the social cohesion and social context and economic, obviously. So poverty, housing and food insecurity is kind of what was coming to my mind. And then given a pandemic, health would be, in health access could really impact a child’s resilience and response to trauma in these.

Janet: Absolutely.

Mary Jo: So that was kind of mine…

Janet: In these times. Sure. Yeah. Christine, is there anything you’d like to add that anything that you would think that the audience needs to hear, or you’d want to magnify or shout from the rooftops.

Christine: Well, by all means. The number one way to build the person’s resilience is strengthening relationships. And that happens in the best of times through supportive adults being in people’s lives with children and other adults and having positive experiences with them. The whole point of trauma-informed design is so that it can happen in a safe environment because people can’t learn when they’re not feeling safe. People can’t have those positive experiences if they’re worried about something impacting them, either physically or emotionally. So it all goes hand-in-hand.

Janet: Terrific. Thank you so much. Christine, we’ll bring you back at the end and we’ll have a little group conversation. Mary Jo, who’s up next?

Mary Jo: So, Angela Cristiani is a school psychologist and a political strategist, which is, kind of pulls together some really cool pieces of this.

Janet: Really great elements, right. Yeah, so Angela is going to go live. So, Eliza.

Angela: Hello, everybody, can you hear me? Hope everyone is well. It’s my pleasure to be here today. Working as a school psychologist in the city of Boston in the McCormack School, which you’ve spoken about today. As a political director on behalf of teachers across the city of Boston. And, I’m not sure if, I’m getting a bad echo here…

Janet: And like we said, there has been some technical difficulties. It’s all good. We’re just trying to get through this together..

Angela: As political director, I have the blessing to be able to move policy related to safe and supportive schools. So that’s a framework in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts that embraces bullying, truancy, safe and supportive schools, it’s a great program. Public behavioral health. Turnaround schools. Trauma sensitive schools. Guidelines around emotional… sorry, sorry, this is not working, we have to stop.

Eliza: All right. We’re going to skip to the next presenter and then we’ll come back to Angela.

Janet: I was just going to say, let’s work out those kinks and let’s keep moving on. So, Mary Jo, I think we’re going to introduce Davis. Right. Davis actually has a film presentation, so that should be smooth, and we can be able to move on from there. So, sound like a plan?

Mary Jo: Yup. People may know that Davis Harte is the Thesis and Faculty Program Advisor at the BAC. She’s the health advocate and speaker. She is very well known in the field and we are delighted that she’s able to join us here. Davis?

Janet: All right. Roll Davis.

Davis: Hi, everyone. I’m Davis. I’m going to provide you some examples and some resources of what we know about trauma-informed design in K-12 settings from before the pandemic. As is quite obvious, I would imagine you all know how much more urgent applying trauma-informed design is moving forward. And let’s listen to one young person read these two quotes from the slide now.

Young Person: “Children’s talent to endure stems from their ignorance of alternatives” by the poet Maya Angelou. “veo alo final de mi rudo camino que yo fui el arquitecto de mi propio destino.” “I see at the end of my rough journey that I’ve been the architect of my own destiny” by the poet Amado Nervo.

Davis: Here’s another version of the three realms of ACEs to remind the non trauma-informed people, Adverse Childhood Experiences is the, what that ACEs stands for. The converse of this idea is the opportunity for resilience and reregulation. We can see that substandard schools and even the schools that are well-designed may very well have room for improvement and increase their trauma informed design nature. But clearly, this is a big ecological system with many layers. So let’s move on to talking more about the schooling trauma-informed design relationship.

Being a design researcher, this question I have on the slide is actually a couple of years old. “Can design buffer children stress?” Well, I’d say the evidence is arguing more and more in the favor of yes, design absolutely can. And the goal here is to try to make a safe and supportive environment as one of the steps of the processes. When there’s a safe and supportive environment, the child or youth is able to create secure attachments to a nurturing adult. And the stress and trauma, neurohormonal responses of overwhelm and unavailability to learn are diminished. And learning the soft non-cognitive skills of coping and ability to self-soothe and self-regulate put the child and the youth into a place of school success and feeling safer.

We know what we know about trauma-informed design from the work that’s been done in education, health care settings, homeless population services and so forth. For trauma-informed design dealing with buildings and educational settings, there are a few popular media examples that we can refer to. One I’d like to point out is Inclusive Designers podcast. The host, Janet Roche is a design for human health alarm and she’s moderating in the panel today. She’s organized this entire event. So thank you, Janet. They interviewed me because I worked on an abuse intervention center that serves children and youth. And it’s called the ABC House. They are happy for you to look at their website, or you can find out more examples of that work that I did on my own website, Paradigm Spaces.com.

This is just an example of how well a trauma-informed design approach can serve vulnerable, traumatized populations, both the children and youth, and the staff and educators that serve them. Here’s some really great examples of people doing trauma-informed design approach to their setting. We have, all of them are serving children or families on this page. Please feel free to come back and visit this at the replay that you can get. There are some really positive things coming out of these groups. Portland Homeless Family Solutions has a TED talk by Brandi Tuck. Theory of Place Design is based in New York City and are serving people in Baltimore and Los Angeles. And Y2Y is a Boston based homeless services for youth. ASID is involved, and you can see that there are a lot of people thinking through how to make trauma-informed design work for their particular population and their particular setting. It’s not a cookie cutter approach. It must be done thoughtfully and there are means to do so.

So, you’ve decided that you do want to implement a trauma-informed design approach. You gather your team. Everybody’s on board, but you do want to have a little ground to stand on. So, some of the evidence-based design resources that I would recommend are ‘Healing by Design’ a guide that Britta Loeb wrote, and she can be found in Designinghealing.com. ‘Bright Spaces’ also has a great resource. And the chapter in ‘Supporting and Educating Traumatized Students’ just released second edition edited by Eric Rozin, the Chapter 19 that Dak Kopec and I authored is designed as the missing variable in trauma-informed schools. I would give that a thumbs up. It’s very hands on and applied, has some theory to guide your decision-making processes as you move forward in this journey.

This image is from the designs that some of the BAC students came up with for the McCormack School that you’ll be hearing about shortly from Sophia. This is not how it looks currently, but in the planning stages, this was some of the ideas we had come up with. So back to your role in this movement. ‘What can I do next?’ Well, you’ve already done step one, step one, which is to realize that trauma-informed design is feasible and even the smallest changes can have measurable impacts on your health and well-being of your education, educators and the students involved. So go ahead and decide, make that choice and be a leader. I would strongly recommend hiring an expert to join the team. There are trauma-informed designers, environmental psychologists, environmental designers, evidence-based designers, people with EDAC. WELL AP or Fitwel certifications. And remember to know and learn your ecosystem. Come at it with a blank slate, as if you are an ethnographer, really get a tailored approach so that you can meet the needs of your population most optimally. And just to flash this reference page at you so, you know, to come back and visit if you want to. The replays will be available, and my contact information will be on the liner notes for this talk. Please get in touch with me. I’m always happy to help drive this movement forward. Trauma-informed design matters. And I’m happy to play a part in this pivotal new way of looking at our brain and our bodies and our buildings. Thank you very much. Be well.

Janet: Terrific. Thank you so much, Davis. That was terrific. I’m sorry things got a, a little wonky. Again. It’s live, right? Mary Jo, what were your takeaways from that? What was, what were your, what were your thoughts?

Mary Jo: So, in listening to Davis’ presentation and having kind of heard Davis before, it always strikes me how much you just have to know your population and that you really, you can’t just kind of do the reading. You have to go. You have to be part of. You have to ask questions. You have to observe. You have to ask more questions. And then the other thing that I really took away from this particular piece was, it doesn’t have to be huge. You can make a big difference by doing smaller things. And almost a harm-reduction model, right? So that even any little bit will help, even if you’re not doing the entire thing, even if you’re not doing a whole school or you’re doing every single part of the building. Any small piece will help with safety, will help people feel safer, and that kids learn better, as we learned from Christine, when they feel safe. So, I think…

Janet: Right. Absolutely. Yeah. And we’ll hear a little bit more, I think, at some point from Sophie about just even small things can make a big impact. So, Davis, what other things do you want us to, what other kind of things you want to emphasize? Is there something else say, you would like for people to understand and get from your talk?

Davis: Well, listening to all of, almost all of the talks that have happened today through the BAC talks, I just see that it’s, we’re designing for the planet, which is a system that supports us as humans. So, coming back to our most vulnerable or so-called vulnerable people, if we include them in the conversation, they’re able to articulate their needs and we present to them more options for what, what could be. So we’re re-imagining now. And we must just go for it. There’s no, there’s no time to overanalyze and sit around and process things forever. It’s a matter of let’s get in conversation with the people who are not able to talk at the moment because they’re not invited into the space. So, I’m excited to hear what the other panelists will talk about and see how this is, it’s all this interconnected web that we’re all part of, and it’s just very exciting to be an activist in this way versus my previous life before I became an academic. I like this way a lot. I can, I can do really radical change from my screen. I don’t necessarily have to put myself in harm’s way. So thank you for, thank you for facilitating. And we’ll just move on to the next one.

Janet: We’ll keep moving forward. Absolutely. Thank you so much, Davis. And I think what we’ll probably do, Eliza, if you’re listening, I think we’ll probably just go to Sophie. Mary Jo, do you want to tell us a little bit about Sophie?

Mary Jo: Sure, so she is the director of Trinity at McCormack. McCormack is a school in Boston that really took on the principles of trauma-informed design to help the kids there feel safer, have better options, and more access to their education.

Janet: So, there she is. Hi. (Sophie: Hi.) So what’s, so tell us a little bit about what you’re going to talk about today.

Sophie: So, my name is Sophie Brion-Meisels. I’m the director of a program called Trinity at McCormack that does both intensive clinical services for youth in that school and also supports the school to become a trauma-informed and restorative school community. I wanted to put this slide up first just because I think if there is one takeaway, it’s that we need the design and we need the actions. That trauma-informed design is one part of changing a community’s values and behaviors to be trauma-informed and inclusive for all young people. Our program serves a population of kids who are all youth of color. And we talked about ACEs, normally we do an adjusted ACEs and the average for our caseload is about 17 out of a 25-point ACEs scale. So, all of our young people are dealing with Toxic Stress and Complex Trauma. We have a 4-part trauma-informed school, but I’m going to talk about today is mostly on the slide you’re seeing that’s called efficacy and self- awareness. It’s a really amazing place for design to come in. And a little bit about contribution. And we can move forward.

I should let you know before I get to the slide, I work for Trinity Boston Connect, which is a nonprofit in Boston that has multiple programs and our core values, our racial equity from informed-care and restorative justice. And I think one thing that is specific to the people I’m going to talk about in our school is that because they are all young people of color, one of the ways in which they are being retraumatized in school is being in an institution that espouses that it is there to support them. But in actuality, historically has been setup to dis-enfranchise and dehumanize most of those young. And so I think that made a really specific impact. So, Christine did an amazing job with trauma, I’m going to add on one thing before we go to our program and some data, which is this slide.

So, a normal person’s brain does these processes in the course of making the decision. They’re not conscious and they’re very fast. We observe. We interpret. We process. We make an evaluation based on previous experience. And we act. You can go to the next slide. For a person that’s in that ‘Manageable Stress’ place, the Fight, Flight, Freeze or Feign comes in and our brain does a different process to make sure that we keep ourselves safe in any life-threatening situation. What happens with Complex Trauma is that that Fight, or Flight path becomes the dominant pathway. And people who are in Toxic Stress for a long period of time, their brains don’t remember to follow the normal pathway of interpreting process, evaluating an act. And so, what this means for young people is that any stress triggers a Toxic Stress, triggers a fight or flight response. And why that’s important is that, as Christine said, in schools, kids are stressed all the time. Learning should be Positive Stress, but for young people dealing with Toxic Stress in schools, all stress feels like a fight or flight response. And that’s why for people, I know there’s some school psychologists, why we see things that seem to us as observers as huge overreactions to small events with young people. We can move forward. Next slide. Great.

So the last thing before I talk about our program is that, I just want to name that relationships, again people have said this before, are critical to the work we do. Relationships are what harm us, both systemic relationships and interpersonal relationships. And they are the only thing that heals. The process in the brain that I just talked about, our brains only change by experience.

So as we talk about this program, the two things that I want to point out to you is that all of the actions are about having positive relationships with other people, and all of the interventions are about practice. Our brain is not, a kid’s brain is not going to relearn that pathway that we want them to relearn around processing and evaluating and acting, unless they are constantly practicing that process. They will not be able to change with us telling them to change. They have given opportunities to practice a new way of thinking and being and doing, and they are not going to be able to do that unless they are in safe and supportive relationships like Christine said.

The last thing about this slide that I think is important, particularly in this time to name, is that the relationships are about perception. So young people feel safe and supported in a relationship if they feel safe and supportive in the relationship. There are many times as a consultant with schools where I am talking to adults who say I have a great relationship with this kid and the kid says, I don’t have a good relationship with that adult. That’s not personal, but that perception is important. And particularly for adults who are working across difference, across race, across genders, across sexual orientation or gender identification, our perception of how supportive we are of somebody may not be their perception of our support. And what matters in trauma-informed care is that the young person feels support. We can go to the next one.

Okay, so I’m going to talk a little bit about our intervention. So in 2016, we started with our case load a WIN room, a ‘What I Need’ room that was specifically designed to help with the self-regulation skills that are lost when a young person is dealing with Toxic Stress. Again, that space is highly ritualized to help with this. It’s consistent all day long, so kids can use it whenever they want. It really important that this space is consistent with the adult, that if there’s an adult in that space, which (?) responds to the kid is the same. And the goal is for this student to learn self-regulation tools that are appropriate for our school. So to practice how to cope with feelings and behaviors that they don’t know how to deal with in a way that is appropriate to school. So, if we go on to the next slide. We tracked both how much students use the room, and how long they needed to use the room. So, in the room part of the design was to do three components to help kids know what they needed in the moment, to get themselves somewhere safe, to figure out how to cope, ‘what do I need to do with my body’ and then to be able to reflect on what led them to feeling whatever emotion they were feeling. And all of those three things were included in the way that we designed the space. So there are posters that reminded people of how you can cope. And I think each of you thinks about how you cope with difficult things yourself, you’ll find that they’re somewhere in one of these four posters. I need to focus on something specific. I need to calm down with a meditation. I need to move my body; I need to be creative and create something. So these posters help them think about what do I need to do in the moment to help myself manage my body. Next slide.

The next question is, ‘what do I need to do to feel differently? How can I change what I’m feeling in my body?’ So there were elliptical machines. There were chairs that were sensory deprivation. There were posters that reminded them of mindfulness activities. They were stress balls. There was painting. There was all different kinds of things, including the design of the room that helped them be able to change their internal state, how they were feeling. Next slide.

And finally, there were things that helped them reflect on what happened. And this is where the relationship comes in. So they would fill out a form after they were calmed down and then go back with an adult and have the conversation. ‘What was I feeling? What could I have done differently? And what could people around me have done differently? And how to what to have a response to whatever that emotion that’s helpful to me?’. Next slide.

So as you can see from our data, in October, there were 79 visits from 20 kids during the month. And by June there were 13. And the time that they were needed in the room to sort of calm down and self-regulate it had a similar curve. And this is exactly what we wanted to see. So with practice, young people were able to take away that highway of Toxic Stress that was a fight or flight response and go back to being able to learn the skills to have more choice and efficacy over how they were reacting to things that happened during the school day. Next slide.

We also got this confirmed with teachers. We took a monthly teacher polls about how students were doing in the classroom. There was a 27-percent increase in positive coping skills and a 38-percent decrease in kids acting out in the classroom from teachers reports. Next slide.

And finally, what we didn’t really expect, but we’re thrilled about, was that there were significant increase in attendance, which is a data point that’s important to high school graduation for young people. And in GPAs. 90-percent of the students in that caseload increased their GPA over the year as they were able to stay in class more, and the average GPA increased by 77-percent, which was pretty amazing and much higher than we expected. So the last thing I’ll talk about is that ultimately, we want to (?) these spaces. These are some pictures of, called Peace Corners, which were WIN spaces in classrooms. And this has been a huge part of where the design has really helped. So different teachers have designed these based off of their own interests and their own needs and the needs of the students. And again, like Davis was saying, really bringing in the voice of each teacher and each student in the classroom. And each of these spaces have the same things that you saw in the WIN room. Next slide.

These are some outcomes, I know we’re running out of time, but they were very similar positive outcomes for the WIN spaces in the rooms, for the Peace Corners in the rooms, as we saw when Trinity was running our own WIN room in the school. And it’s been really successful to bring them in to the classrooms. I think the one big takeaway for me is that students are saying that they get all the benefits of a reregulation space, but they also can follow the classroom curriculum when those reregulation spaces are designed in the classrooms rather than a space outside of the classrooms where the students need to go to. That’s it.

Janet: So inspiring, I just, you know, I just love what you do. Mary Jo, what were your takeaways, do you have any questions for Sophie?

Mary Jo: You know, I think there’s. Yeah. There was so much there, that, it’s amazing what was done. And your outcomes are really, really impressive. I guess the first thing that I would take away is that design can and should be part of treatment. And not just an afterthought. But actually, when you’re thinking about a treatment, when you’re thinking about actual intervention, think about the environment and then make those adjustments. And the other thing is that the interplay of biology, environment, community can’t be underplayed. That they’re so completely connected and that you can address one but if you don’t address the other two, you’re not going to get the results. And that when you do address all three, the gestalt is amazing. And that you really made an impact on the whole community. So I think it’s, for me, that was what was most inspiring, was that the impact you can make and the outcomes you can get within, with doing just some minor tweaks are really impressive.

Janet: Right and yeah and I would add, I’m sorry, I don’t mean to interrupt you, Mary Jo, but, you know, and Sophie will tell you, I mean, this school has no money, and for what she was able to do for no money and the outcomes that she was able to achieve. I mean, it’s nothing short of like, a small miracle. Sophie, I really applaud what you do, and you do it every day. And I know it just hasn’t been easy for you to do this. I know you would rather be with your students. So we really appreciate you coming on in. Is there any last words or takeaway to give us or any kind of other ideas for design, or was there something that you felt like you needed to add? She’s back. All right. Sophie, real quick, any last-minute takeaways?

Sophie: I think the design piece it’s a really important piece of the whole trauma-informed school, and then it’s also a very concrete that schools often don’t have the budget for. And that we don’t think about in terms of what we’re communicating to young people their worth and to teachers. And I think the only other thing is that as we come through this pandemic, as we come through what is hopefully a revolution in terms of the way that we are valuing people of color. Doing this is something that we’re doing for all schools and assuming that every kid needs.

Janet: Right. Again, we think that that’s very clear, I think that that was why one of the reasons why a lot of you signed up for this particular session, I think you all recognize it. We’re not quite sure if the polls are working. So, I’m not quite sure, I will assume most of you at this point will think that you’ll be mentioning trauma-informed design within at least the next six months quite a bit. And you can come back to reference it on Inclusive Designers. So maybe we’ll try to see if we can’t get Angela on the phone for a couple of minutes. Angela, are you around or are you able to get back on or how is that working?

Mary Jo: So, can I just jump in while we’re waiting for Angela? One of the things I’d like to kind of reinforce or kind of punch up that Sophie talked a little bit about and everybody before her, is, is that when you’re designing for inclusivity, it benefits everybody. And everybody is, you know. So you don’t always have to design for a particular group. If you design for inclusively, then, you know, if you consider trauma or disadvantaged kids or whatever it is that, whenever you’re designing anything, if you just consider that everybody can use that space. Then everybody moves up and then it becomes part of the regular vernacular. And it’s not just. Well, that’s the trauma room or that’s, it becomes something that everybody can use and a skill that everyone can have.

Janet: Right. I would I would agree with that wholeheartedly. All right Angela you’re up….

Angela: I’m up. Hello, here I am. And thanks to Eliza, the technical difficulties resolved. I came over here to make sure everything’s working. So, everything is. Um, I know Sophie because when I was over at the McCormack after being at the Boston Teachers Union as Political Director, she was in the office next door. So, I remember seeing about 15 students a week.

Everything that we do as practitioners has to meet the legal mandate of safe and supportive schools. And that is the umbrella for everything in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the way it was designed. And I have to give credit to Mayor Walsh, Speaker DeLeo, Senate President Karen Spilka, Salvi, Senator Sal DiDominico, Representative Ruth Balser, Senator Julian Cyr, Representative Tackey Chan, and particularly the team under the direction of Susan Cole at the Trauma Learning Policy Initiative. They’re really the architects, the TLPI under Susan Cole’s direction. And it was 20 years in the making. So, everything was designed to bring all the children together and bring partners, joint new management, public private sector, together so we can service children and give them a resiliency.

And there’s that higher legal mandate. So we talk about the, we hear a lot of soundbites, social emotional learning, trauma. What does it look like? There are frameworks through the Department of Education. Everybody should take a look at it because that is our umbrella. And it really was designed, and I can say that being one of the incubated group of eight in the Boston public schools, along with my mother, the Dr. Ronda Goodale where it was designed so we K to 12, but it should be replicated at higher, at the, at the higher education level. So everybody has a social emotional learning, put bullying prevention, dropout prevention, you see in higher ed. Mental health, foster care. We see homelessness. We see hunger, LBGT, LGBTQ, I always say that wrong, race and gender, transitioning students, you know, restraint, resource officers, ELL students. I can keep going. Student Voice, it was, it was designed to have student voice.

So whatever anybody does going forward, it needs to fit that framework and pull it together because really without the support and the policy pieces that have been put in place. Again, it was over 20 years in the making and it was due to practitioners, you know, bringing all the folks together. You know, I hear Trinity came in in 2016 while the law was passed in 2014, and it was designed so everybody could come together and everybody could have a space at the table and really make life better for children, families in our community.

I, you know, I remain available again it’s Angela Cristiani. I have worn many hats, depending upon how you know me, would be how you know me. But I’m always available to help in how, it’s like a puzzle. You know, you take, you, there’s a puzzle. It’s thrown up in the air and all those pieces fall on the ground. And how does it fit together? How was it integrated? And we want to make sure we do it right for children, because if we do it right for children, it helps the practitioners, which are the teachers. But I love what the BAC is doing going forward, because this is groundbreaking, just like the work we did on safe and supportive schools. And it really needs to happen, the time, we have a lot of pieces. It’s just how we put it together. So, I’ll stop there.

Janet: Brilliant, brilliant. Thank you so much, Angela, and thank you also for acknowledging the BAC and being in the forefront of this. This is Designed for Human Health. This is what we do. You know, I know Davis, if we could get Davis back on, she would totally agree with me on that. And we have a great champion in somebody like Mahesh and Don Hunsicker, the Design Studies program. It’s only growing. And we are, you know, I remember really quickly just to say, Davis and I was seeing (Eric Corey Freed). I’m not going to remember his name. He was in one of the other talks earlier today. And he was talking in terms of sustainability. But he also said the Design for Human Health is going to be where it’s at. And Davis and I, I dare say it was pre pandemic. We were giving each other hugs like we know this is going to be big. And to Angela’s point, you know, and looking at trauma-informed, especially within the education system, is going to be so important getting kids back to school. When they go back to be determined. How they go back to be determined. But this component will be a very important part. Maybe, Davis, you could talk to us a little bit how you see some of the takeaways that we can share with the audience.

Davis: Well, I mean, I see a lot in the chat box about how to make this happen in your setting, and so that to me is just resoundingly positive. There isn’t a set guideline because the trauma-informed design is in its, not even infancy, it’s still, it’s still a couple of days old. Trauma-informed care practices and policies are, are a newborn. I was at the trauma-informed Oregon Steering Committee yesterday and they say, ‘look, we were formed in 2014, the same year as Designed for Human Health was formed. So these are things that we are helping to shape. And so, the conversations that we can get going and the relationships we can have between each other, I think is part of the key to making this work. And recognizing once you, once you know it, you can’t unknow it.

So understanding that the environment will have an impact on the functioning of the people who are in that space, not just the children and the youth. Of course, the children and the youth, but the adults and staff that care for those people that everybody is caring for each other. So and how we do our own self care is certainly part of the story. So how we are able to let ourselves perceive that we have some power in agency without necessarily running the show. We don’t have to run at all. It’s not it’s not our business to run it all. But what can you do within your own means, starting with, you know, is there a way to lower blinds? If the afternoon sun is coming into a classroom setting and the children are getting light in their eyes, we know from Alzheimer’s and dementia folks, that’s when sundowning occurs because you’re getting a bright glare. And this is really disruptive to the, to the ability to stay calm. So there is a lot that we do know and we are really looking for ways to put it forward into very tangible and meaningful ways that people can just take it and run with it because we are all, immediately we want it to be ready to go right now. But it’s an ongoing conversation.

Janet: Right. Absolutely. You know, I’m trying to figure out if there’s any questions. So I do see one question and I thought we would maybe try to answer it. ‘How can we use psychology to improve our designs for general positive well-being beyond the interiors, but the building itself, especially Covid and with isolation.’ Let me let me try to break it down a little bit further. Are there other ways that we can go and look at the built environment? I mean, Sophie brought up some really good ideas and they’re not that expensive. Right. I also saw that she was just posing that a lot of the class, they got a grant and one of the classrooms only had like 400-dollars to put in some of these peace corners and stuff like that. And the painting and, you know, to help kids to self-regulate. Any other ideas you guys have.

Angela: Could I, could I jump in, it’s Angela.

Janet: Absolutely.

Angela: I would suggest so first of all and I’ll speak to the city of Boston. You know, we have all these agencies and all these partners that come in. So as practitioners, school psychologists have the lead in the schools. There aren’t enough of them, but it’s a different issue. OK, that’s a budget budgetary issue. But one way to start fixing things is a collaboration with, with these school-based people and the outside folks in the agencies. So, the partnership is everything.

And the one thing that I can honestly say is the mayor in the city of Boston, Mayor Walsh, has unconditionally funded schools. So largest budget, I believe, in the city. And without question, any ask, I can say on a policy level and on a political level, he has respected, and he cares greatly for the children and the teachers and wants to make the lives better for the children. So if the money doesn’t appear to be there and I was at the McCormack— I know that, that we hear, it’s a poor school— there’s money in that school. I can say that having developed funds and done fundraising, there is money in that school. It might not be packaged the same way as it is at other schools.

So getting everybody at the same table is where you really begin. And again, meeting the higher law, which is safe and supportive schools, because right now we have everything in in silos bringing everybody together because everybody’s heart is in the right place and making it work and working toward the standards through the Department of Ed, and then bringing the architects, bringing the policymakers, bringing everybody together, bringing Trinity. I mean, they are a partner of ours in the city, and others and having, everybody’s trying to do the same thing in kind of getting us all growing in the same direction.

Janet: To your point, I mean, it’s always a great way to approach design anyways, you want all the stakeholders to be there. You want the teachers to be there. You want to you want to go and also interview students. You want to go, and you know, and observe, you know, Mary Jo, you brought that all in before. That is all an important point to remember. You know, you’re not doing this in some sort of vacuum. You’re not looking at a room and going, ‘OK, we’re going to go in, you know, design, it’s going to be a pretty little wall over here.’ Right. I mean, let’s talk about what they’re looking at.

And so, at the Design for Human Health Program, what we look at is the biology, psychology and sociology of a space. So we know, I mean. And then also in the world of Covid, you know, how do we keep kids literally safe? Also, what is the biology behind the trauma? Those are two examples. And the psychology would also be along the same lines. What are the traumas that are, you know, creating as to Sophie’s point, the fight, flight or fame and faint? Wait, there’s, there’s four of them now. Right. They change every day. Fight, Flight. Faint. Freeze. I see it Sophie, thank you. And then what I think is really kind of interesting, it’s kind of glossed over sometimes, is the sociology component of it. So what about people’s cultures? What about their religion? What about their background? You know, their home life, that kind of stuff? All needs to be put in with that, you know, that soup, if you will. And so, can we get either Davis, or, Sophie, Davis or Christine back on?

Mary Jo: So, while we are doing that, can I just say that using the policy, like Angela had said, what, use of policy, use the research. So pull in research, pull in policy, because that is your backbone, that’s the backbone of being able to then structure things around and know what the policies are and know what best practices are for research. Because that does actually give you a leg to stand on. If you’re going to a school board or if you’re going to, you know, a grant or something. Absolutely do that.

Janet: Right. and to Davis’ talk, I mean, looking at the evidence is so important because you can, to your point Mary Jo, you could point to it and be like this is what the evidence is showing us. And it’s not, I’m not just putting this stairway here because it looks pretty, you know. So we look at all those different components. Again, the biology, psychology, sociology of the space. But we take the evidence that’s out there and try to implement it. Anything you’d like to add with that, Davis? Yeah?

Davis: Yeah, I mean, I’m happy to. I’m, I’m learning more and more about how firms are including, somebody who is an evidence-based designer or researched informed practitioner in their firms. So the more I hear about that, the more I think ‘OK, good’. This is, we’re starting to see a shift in how people can create evidence-based design research that will have impacts. But as you can imagine the, as Mary Jo said, the word gestalt earlier, and that is the one of the theories that means, well, the sum is greater than, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

So when you consider an interior, you have so many different design variables that it can be very difficult to measure how that space is impacting somebody. I worked quite a bit with preschool children and looked at how the presence of randomized houseplants might affect their attention abilities. And this is just one variable I was shifting. Some days the plants were there, some days the plants were not. How did that change how they behaved during the set time of going and looking at their, which free choice area did they want to go play in? But, you know, if you’re starting to measure both the ceiling height and the wall colors, well, was it the ceiling height or the wall colors that had the impact on somebody prosocial behavior? So this is, this is where, you know, knowing that there’s many of us working on this, it isn’t just up to me to figure this out. I would be completely overwhelmed.

And to know that there’s others who are doing this work. Hundreds of people are involved with Environmental Design. Research Association, IAPS is the International Association of People and Spaces. These are folks who want to bring design to research and vice versa so that we can make the world a safe place for everybody. I mean, it cuts across everybody. It touches everybody, having spaces that are safe and supportive, and it’s it’s, I never come to work. This is all just, I love it so much. I’m honored to know you all in to see such a great chatty bunch on the on the chats. If people want to answer the polls, that will give the panel and myself some great information. So take a minute and go answer those polls because then we can kind of use a little bit of soft research.

Janet: Yeah. OK. Terrific. Because I actually I see something and actually Davis it’s from you and I was kind of I was thinking about it earlier and you’re talking about sensory paths. And as another option for design. And can you talk a little bit about that? Because I always find wayfinding and sensory paths to be kind of fascinating. So can you talk a little bit about that?

Davis: Yeah, sure. We’re here to interpret. Right. I mean, everything around us, physical is, is a vibration. So we’re trying to interpret the world to make sense of it. That’s, that’s our job as humans. So people have different abilities to process. Some have hyperstimulation to noises while they have under-aroused tactile components. So they may, they might need a deep pressure situation where they’re getting ability to hug each other a lot or squeeze enough, squeeze the squishies or be able to use fidget material. So this is satisfying some part of them that can create a soothe, self-soothing. So once they’re able to self-soothe, then they can get into the neurohormonal situation where they’re reducing their cortisol levels. They’re able to be calm and get into a receptive learning mode.

It’s a fun journey because it is this sculpture, this sort of a puzzle of, well, what will work for some won’t work for others. So it’s clearly something that having a team of people who are trained in this and understand this can help you check your thoughts. Of course, it affects your own self. You need to check yourself and know where you come from, who you are as a designer or as a school psychologist or as a learner. As a mom. As a whomever it is. So it’s something that if sensory issues get out of control, then misbehavior happens. I mean, I speak from personal experience in my 10-year old and this is in my well-adjusted my safe house, my privileged. We’re good, everything’s cozy in our world. And yet she’s displaying a lot of I’m getting traumatized because of this ongoing uncertainty and lack of socialization. So hopefully that touches on just some of it. And we understand that this whole talk is a 2-year degree or longer. So we’re doing, we’re doing the best we can without overwhelming everybody. Just give it a touch of what there is in the trauma-informed design worlds.

Janet: Right. A little a little taste. And it’s interesting. So, Christine actually just put something in there. You know, it’s about experiencing maybe like hyperarousal and I’m going to probably terrorize this. But, Christine, if you can jump in at some point. The idea that, you know, we have this ability, you know, we can use breath work or physical activity, is there anything else that you would like to add to that?

Christine: There are a lot of things that are available to help ground a person, so they’re, the number one thing I like to do when someone is over the top, like in the hyperarousal area, feeling anxious because that’s what we see more often, or at least we feel more acutely than the hypoarousal.

Janet: Right, wouldn’t you also maybe suggest that I mean, a lot of us are in that hyperarousal. I mean, we are all experiencing trauma right now. I mean, I swear to God, I think I had a small panic attack at the Hannaford’s the other day. So, go ahead…

Christine: So the number one thing you could use at home on yourself or with someone else is the countdown technique. You start with five things you can see and say them aloud. Find them and say them. Four things you can feel. Three things you can hear. Two things you can smell. And one thing you can taste. By the time you get to the taste, you’d be surprised how much more calm you are, especially because, I mean, it’s really what’s on the inside of your mouth. So that’s really bringing you into your body. And usually, hopefully when you’re thinking about all these different things, when you’re thinking about what you can see, it’s what’s around you. But when you’re thinking about what you can feel, it’s about how your body is interacting with all of that around you, what you hear, what you smell. I mean, hopefully that if you’re hearing your breath and you’re really focusing on how you’re interacting with your surface, you know. for what I can feel, you might be touching this desk, or my feet and how they’re touching the floor in my shoes and all those kinds of things. It’s amazing how quickly that can slow you down and really focus you.

Janet: Right. Mary Jo, do you have any design ideas and how to achieve some of those great tactics?

Mary Jo: Well, I think it’s knowing the environment, knowing the person, because, you know, kind of as we talked about before, everybody is going to have a little bit of a different path. You know, their sensory things can be a little bit different. And so I think it’s knowing your environment and knowing where the those sort of quieter spaces are, you can help talk to somebody or even just yourself to kind of plant yourself somewhere and just help if, you know, then start there and kind of just do some prompting as opposed to go do that and go do, you know, you want to help someone along. But you want to stay really calm. You want the environment to be as calm as possible. Once people get used to doing this, you could be on a crazy busy train and you can just take a deep breath and you can just start doing it yourself. And it’s really quick. It’s like guided imagery or something, once you get practiced at it, the environment becomes a little less important around being able to get in touch with yourself and be able to bring your blood pressure down. But, yeah, I think that environment needs to be, and the built environment needs to be thoughtful and not just pretty.

Janet: Right. Absolutely. And that and that’s and that’s sort of why we’re here. Christine, I’ll let you, we’re running out of time.

Christine: So, one last thing. The number one thing when someone is under distress is to help them feel safe. And that might take, some trial and error and asking them what they need. But as soon as they feel safe, you’ll start to see it come down a little bit and then you’ll be able to have more of those conversations about other things that they might need or want. But safety is key.

Janet: Terrific. Thank you, Christine. Because Davis. Davis, do you have any last minute, you got like one minute? Any thoughts?

Davis: Really appreciative that everybody took the time to come and join today. That, to me, makes all the difference. If we can’t get folks knowing about this and then no change can happen. So I think we’ve really succeeded in being able to articulate, despite a few tech difficulties, how strongly this matters and how easily it can happen. It can happen on the micro scale in your school. It can happen at any age, K through 12, higher ed. Any space can be mentoring by trauma-informed design. Absolutely.

Janet: Right. Thank you, Davis. Mary Jo, any last, last second, you got…

Mary Jo: Yeah, anything is better than nothing. Just give it some thought and take a stab at it.

Janet: Right. Thank you very much guys. Mary Jo, Mary Jo Cooper. Terrific. Thank you so much. Dr Harte as I always end up calling her, it was lovely. Sophie, I’m not going to say your last name and it’s terrible because I am running out of time. I can feel it. And then Angela Christiani, thank you so much.

Don’t forget, it’s Inclusive Designers Podcast, Inclusivedesigners.com. And we’ll have all that information on there. This is all been recorded. Thank you so much. I’m Janet Roche. And on behalf of the Design for Human Health Program thank you so much for listening on today’s talk about trauma-informed design. Thank you.

Disclaimer: One of our guests claimed that the McCormack Middle School in Boston has money, and all the district needs to do is to ask for additional money. IDP’s host, Janet Roche, did not dive into this statement in order to keep the focus of the discussion on the benefit of trauma-informed design for schools, the topic of this show.

Janet visited the McCormack school numerous times and everything from the brick and mortar to the interior of the school shows that this claim is incorrect. Pictures of the school from those visits (posted below) show the conditions, and you can decide whether or not this school is well funded.

Presentation Videos:

Christine Cowart- “What Is Trauma and Why Does It Matter?”

Christine: Hello. My name is Christine Cowart, and I’m going to talk about what trauma is, and why it matters, especially in relation to design. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration defines trauma as having three parts. It’s an experience that happens to an individual; the individual has to believe that it is physically or emotionally harmful or life-threatening; and, it has to have lasting negative effects on the individual throughout time. In 1998, a medical practice in California noticed that some of their patients were doing significantly better than others with seemingly similar backgrounds. They identified ten common characteristics that when experienced as a child could result in poor health outcomes. We refer to these as Adverse Childhood Experiences, or ACEs for short. ACEs can have lasting negative impacts throughout a person’s life, including— increased injury; effects on mental and maternal health; increased infections and chronic disease; the adoption of risky behaviors; and the loss of opportunities. I want to stress that this is risk, not certainty.

There are a lot of things that can impact how a person is affected by adversity, including— exercise; life choices; personal relationships; and therapy. But as you can see from this list, the effects of these experiences are not just psychological. Having experienced adversity can quite clearly affect a person’s physical health dramatically. This data shows the prevalence of ACES across our nation, but it’s based on information collected through telephone surveys and is believed to be significantly under reported. Evidence indicates that at least 78-percent of the U.S. population has experienced at least one traumatic event in their lifetimes. As we know from the definition of trauma, ACEs do not come close to encompassing all forms of trauma. The recognition that trauma can be caused by more than personal events resulted in the concept of adverse community environments.

So let’s talk about our current situation. We’re all experiencing isolation, which can magnify depression and lead to suicidal ideation. We are all more confined. Kids might be confined to unsafe homes and not have interaction with others who could intervene. Most of the interaction kids are currently getting is coming through screens, which means they’re much more likely to see the really disturbing images and videos of current events, including police violence and the resulting unrest and protests. Kids are feeling out of control and may not have anyone with whom to process these feelings or what they’re seeing. Kids are feeling a loss, both concrete and ambiguous, which is harder to define and harder to ask for help about. We all experience stress in our lives. If I do the same thing over and over again and never change it up, I’m feeling comfortable, but I’m also not learning anything. This is my comfort zone. In order to learn something new, I have to step outside my comfort zone. When I can do this with a feeling of relative safety, that’s ‘Positive Stress’. This is where learning happens. When those boundaries get pushed even more, I get nervous, my heart starts racing, and in my case, I get blinders or tunnel vision. I feel really uncomfortable, and as though things might end quite badly. But if it’s a relatively short-lived experience, or if I have someone to process the event with, it might be OK. This is ‘Tolerable Stress’. But when those boundaries get pushed even further to a place where I seriously feel as though I can’t handle it and there’s no end in sight, or I feel as though my life may be in danger, and I have no one to process it with… that’s ‘Toxic Stress’. Toxic stress is the mechanism by which adversity becomes traumatic.

Two people might experience the same thing and it might be traumatic to one and not to the other. Genetics has something to do with this because people have certain genetic makeups that protect them from anxiety or depression. Very frequently, however, the difference is whether the person has a supportive adult to rely on to buffer the person from what would otherwise be traumatic. Toxic stress activates your fight, flight, or freeze response. When this happens repeatedly over time, changes occur in your brain that result in an exaggerated stress response to situations that can lead to hyperarousal, hypervigilance, increased wakefulness, and sleep disruption. In addition to changes within the brain, experiencing Toxic Stress can result in other physical changes to one’s body. This image shows just some of these physical impacts.

There are things that can make a person who’s experienced trauma feel as though it’s happening again in the present reality. These are referred to as ‘Triggers’. Common triggers include— unpredictability; sensory overload; feeling vulnerable or frustrated; confrontation; or experiencing something that reminds them of the trauma that originally occurred. We talked about the possible impacts of trauma and mentioned that just because a person experienced something does not mean they’ll experience the negative outcomes or risks associated with that event. ‘Resilience’ is a person’s ability to overcome serious hardship, and the number one way to protect against the risks associated with trauma. Trauma-informed design is about integrating the principles of trauma-informed care into design with the goal of creating physical spaces that promote safety, well-being, and healing. This requires realizing how the physical environment affects identity, worth, and dignity, and how it promotes empowerment.

Environments have the ability to increase or reduce our stress. By anticipating and mitigating potential triggers, you can create spaces in which children’s stress systems can rest and they can find peace. In this peace, they can form supportive relationships with adults. Adults who can challenge them and support them through learning, which happens in the ‘Positive Stress’ zone. This will not only improve their academic learning but will help build their resilience over time.Trauma-informed design gives you the opportunity to minimize potential triggers and calm the stress responses of people who use the space. This can buffer their experiences and build their resilience, giving them a previously elusive sense of physical and emotional safety. What an amazing gift that would be.

Note: When a person is experiencing hypoarousal (depressed, lethargic, numb, unmotivated)- using mindfulness, breath work, and/or physical activity can really help them return to the normal range. When a person is experiencing hyperarousal (overreactive, unclear thought, anxious)- mindfulness, grounding and breath work can help.

Examples of grounding: Grounding activities can include: listening to the sounds around you; noticing what you are touching/what’s around you; pushing against a wall; drinking a glass of water and focusing on how it feels in your mouth and when you swallow; noticing the temperature; focusing on what you can see, feel, hear, smell, taste (and naming them aloud).

Christine also offers trainings on applying trauma-informed care in organizations which can be accessed on her website: www.cotipusa.com

J. Davis Harte, PhD- “Trauma-Informed Design, K-12 Examples in Practice”

Davis: Hi, everyone. I’m Davis. I’m going to provide you some examples and some resources of what we know about trauma-informed design in K-12 settings from before the pandemic. As is quite obvious, I would imagine you all know how much more urgent applying trauma-informed design is moving forward. And let’s listen to one young person read these two quotes from the slide now.

Young Person: “Children’s talent to endure stems from their ignorance of alternatives” by the poet Maya Angelou. “Veo al final di mi rudo camino, que yo fui el arquitecto de mi propio destino.” “I see at the end of my rough journey, that I’ve been the architect of my own destiny” by the poet Amado Nervo (from the poem ‘En Paz’).

Davis: Here’s another version of the three realms of ACEs to remind the non trauma-informed people. Adverse Childhood Experiences is what that ACEs stands for. The converse of this idea is the opportunity for resilience and reregulation. We can see that substandard schools and even the schools that are well-designed may very well have room for improvement and increase their trauma-informed design nature. But clearly, this is a big ecological system with many layers. So, let’s move on to talking more about the schooling trauma-informed design relationship. Being a design researcher, this question I have on the slide is actually a couple of years old: “can design buffer children’s stress?” Well, I’d say the evidence is arguing more and more in the favor of yes, design absolutely can. And the goal here is to try to make a safe and supportive environment as one of the steps of the processes. When there’s a safe and supportive environment, the child or youth is able to create secure attachments to nurturing adults. And the stress and trauma neurohormonal responses of overwhelm and unavailability to learn are diminished. And learning the soft noncognitive skills of coping and ability to self soothe and self-regulate put the child and the youth into a place of school success and feeling safer.

We know what we know about trauma-informed design from the work that’s been done in education, health care settings, homeless population services and so forth. For trauma-informed design, dealing with buildings and educational settings, there are a few popular media examples that we can refer to. One I’d like to point out is Inclusive Designers podcast. The host, Janet Roche is a ‘Design for Human Health’ alum, and she’s moderating the panel today. She’s organized this entire event. So, thank you Janet. They interviewed me because I worked on an abuse intervention center that serves children and youth. And it’s called the ABC House. They are happy for you to look at their website where you can find out more examples of that work that I did, and on my own website, ParadigmSpaces.com. This is just an example of how well a trauma-informed design approach can serve vulnerable, traumatized populations— both the children and youth, and the staff and educators that serve them. Here’s some really great examples of people doing trauma informed design approach to their setting. We have, all of them are serving children or families on this page. Please feel free to come back and visit this at the replay that you can get.

There are some really positive things coming out of these groups. ‘Portland Homeless Family Solutions’ has a TED talk by Brandi Tuck. ‘Theory of Place Design’ is based in New York City and are serving people in Baltimore and Los Angeles. And ‘Y2Y’ is a Boston-based homeless services for youth. ASID is involved, and you can see that there are a lot of people thinking through how to make trauma-informed design work for their particular population and their particular setting. It’s not a cookie cutter approach. It must be done thoughtfully and there are the means to do so. So, you’ve decided that you do want to implement a trauma-informed design approach. You gather your team. Everybody’s on board, but you do want to have a little ground to stand on.

So, some of the evidence-based design resources that I would recommend are ‘Healing by Design’ a guide that Britta Loeb wrote, and she can be found at ‘Designinghealing.com’. ‘Bright Spaces’ also has a great resource. And the chapter in ‘Supporting and Educating Traumatized Students’ just released second edition edited by Eric Rozin, the Chapter 19 that Dak Kopek and I authored is designed as the missing variable in trauma-informed schools. I would give that a thumbs up. It’s very hands on and applied, has some theory to guide your decision-making processes as you move forward in this journey. This image is from the designs that some of the BAC students came up with for the McCormick School that you’ll be hearing about shortly from Sofia. This is not how it looks currently, but in the planning stages. This was some of the ideas we had come up with.

So back to your role in this movement, ‘What can I do next?’… Well, you’ve already done step one, which is to realize that trauma informed design is feasible and even the smallest changes can have measurable impacts on your health and well-being of your education educators and the students involved. So, go ahead and decide, make that choice and be a leader. I would strongly recommend hiring an expert to join the team. There are trauma-informed designers, environmental psychologists, environmental designers, evidence-based designers, people with EDAC, WELL AP or Fitwel certifications. And remember to know and learn of your ecosystem. Come at it with a blank slate. If you are an ethnographer, really get a tailored approach so that you can meet the needs of your population most optimally. And just to flash this reference page at you, so you know to come back and visit it if you want to. The replays will be available, and my contact information will be on the liner notes for this talk. Please get in touch with me, I’m always happy to help drive this movement forward. Trauma-informed design matters. And I’m happy to play a part in this pivotal new way of looking at our brain and our bodies and our buildings. Thank you very much. Be well.

Quotes included in Presentation:

“Children’s talent to endure stems from their ignorance of alternatives”

– poet Maya Angelou

“veo al final de mi rudo camino que yo fui el arquitecto de mi propio destino”

“I see at the end of my rough journey, that I’ve been the architect of my own destiny”

– poet Amado Nervo, from the poem En Paz

Reference Page:

Resources:

TLPI: Trauma & Learning Policy Initiative; massadvocates.org/tlpi