DEA 4100 - Diversity and Facility Design

Spring. 3 credits. Letter grades only.

Prerequisite: DEA 1500, DEA 1110, or permission of instructor.

L. Maxwell.

Upper-level undergraduate course appropriate for undergraduate and graduate students in facility planning and management, human-environment relations, and interior design, as well as students outside of DEA who are interested in how the built environment should respond to a diverse society. The course examines facility planning and design issues in a diverse society. Specifically, the role of culture, gender, stage in the life cycle, and ability/disability in planning and designing facilities of various types is studied. This course examines the issues of diversity from two perspectives: (1) how are the assumptions about the intended users expressed in the deisgn of the built environment; and (2) how do we purposely plan and design facilities in a diverse society. Universal design is explored as a value-added aspect of design.