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203489 https://hdl.handle.net/2286/R.2.N.203489 APA (7th edition): Liu, C., & Smith, B. (2025). Design with empathy and emotional engagement: An adaptive reuse studio. Interior Design Educators Council (IDEC) Annual Conference, Chicago, IL. Chicago (Notes and Bibliography): Chicago Manual of Style: Liu, Chunyao, and Brie Smith. “Design with Empathy and Emotional Engagement: An Adaptive Reuse Studio.” Interior Design Educators Council (IDEC) Annual Conference, Chicago, IL, March 2025. http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ All Rights Reserved 2025 2025 1 PDF (7 pages) eng Liu, Chunyao Smith, Brie At head of title: Scholarship of Teaching and Learning | History & Theory, Human Centric | Presentation Publication date supplied by author Includes bibliographical references. Interior design is a holistic and complex system in which designers interact with individuals, social groups, culture, and the environment, with cognition, identity, and emotionality involved at all levels (Dohr & Portillo, 2011). However, the quality of emotionality remains a crucial yet underexplored aspect that interior designers and educators need to recognize. This pedagogical project explores the quality of students’ emotionality alongside the cultivation of empathy during the design process in a senior interior design studio focused on adaptive reuse. The course centered around a historic site—a 1920s church listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The church partially burned in the 1980s, was left vacant for decades, and was under threat of demolition in the 2010s. Partnering with local clients, students were challenged to transform this 'wounded' building into a new educational space. Building upon the traditional studio course framework—including case studies, historical research, site analysis, schematic design, and final design synthesis and presentation—our course provided students with opportunities to enhance their first-person experiences and interactions with the church as a means to establish a personal and intimate relationship with the building and its history. Students had direct access to the site, allowing them full sensory experiences; they conducted direct observations and documentation of the building in situ and interviewed various parties involved in the building's rediscovery, designation, and rehabilitation. Throughout the course, students engaged in letter writing as a reflective practice to comprehend heritage trauma, navigate and reconcile their emotions, and connect more deeply with the historic place. Specifically, they completed two anthropomorphized letter-writing assignments (Li & Michel, 2023) addressed to the building—an innovative pedagogical approach to capture the emotionality of interior design students. As a method for generating data and triggering narrative, letter writing captures and demonstrates the author’s identity, empathy, and emotionality (Channa, 2017; Danko, Meneely, & Portillo, 2006). The first letter was written after their site visit at the beginning of the design process, while the second followed the completion of their design work. The first embodied the concept of “reflection-in-action,” which occurred during the event, while the second represented “reflection-on-action,” which took place after the event (Schön, 1991). The letters comprehensively outlined the students’ experiences during the site visit, including their understanding of the building’s history and their observations of architectural and design elements. They also displayed complex emotions—appreciation, aspiration, admiration, affection, sadness, happiness, excitement, and reassurance—and their personal connections to the building inspired a determination to reconcile emotions and overcome design challenges. As demonstrated in their letters and final design deliverables, this pedagogical approach enabled students to navigate their emotions, integrate their feelings into thought processes, advocate for the church’s significance, and promote empathetic and informed design strategies. One team found value in the church's original program and established parallels in their proposed design (p.4). Another group, expressing higher levels of emotionality, adopted a nuanced approach, including immersive virtual walkthroughs with ambient sounds of children’s laughter, effectively creating and communicating a human-centered experience that resonated with others (p.5). A student was so inspired by this experience that they enrolled in a master's program and plan to pursue a PhD centered on emotionality. Emotional engagement is a powerful design tool. This approach encourages thoughtful, empathetic, and human-centered design solutions, helping to establish a more holistic and inclusive discipline. Text Interior decoration--Study and teaching Reflective learning Design with Empathy and Emotional Engagement : An Adaptive Reuse Studio