Design and Environmental Analysis

Faculty
Student Policies
DEA Major
DEA Honors Program
Academic Advising

Design and Environmental Analysis (DEA) combines innovative design thinking with insightful design research to understand how the built environment impacts our daily lives. Through multi-disciplinary training in human-centered design, environmental psychology, ergonomics, and facility strategy and management, we tackle problems from a systems view - people, process and place - to create strategic, sustainable healthy futures by design.

D+EA offers an integrative, flexible curriculum that is student-centric. In addition to the Human Ecology credits, undergraduate students complete a total of 65 DEA credits; 35 credits in departmental common core foundation courses and then choose nine courses, three of which must be studios to build expertise within a focus area utilizing thematic courses within the major, as well as electives from the broad course offerings within Human Ecology and at Cornell. The undergraduate curriculum thematic courses are organized around the following three primary themes: Design, Innovation & Strategy, Sustainable Futures, and Health & Well-Being. Students can also elect to complete a minor, honor’s thesis, or pursue an off-campus study experience.

Diverse faculty backgrounds and teaching approaches help students to develop multidisciplinary problem-solving and creative abilities, aesthetic judgment, and analytical thinking. Students explore innovative concepts for the design and management of physical environments of varying scales through courses, studios, laboratories, shop, field experience, and applied research. Examples of student class projects and faculty work are frequently on display in the MVR gallery. Our dLibrary includes books, journals, and materials collections for students to use as resources for their course work and research.

Faculty

M. Shepley, Chair (1411 MVR, (607) 255-2144); S. Yoon, Director of Undergraduate Studies; J. Elliott, Director of Graduate Studies; N. Ahmadi, G. Evans, R. Gilmore, K. Green, Y. Hua, S. Kalantari, H. Kao, J. Loebach, N. Wells, J. Yoon, R. Zadeh

Student Policies

The DEA student policies apply specifically to undergraduate students enrolled in the Design and Environmental Analysis major. DEA majors must also adhere to all Cornell University and College of Human Ecology (CHE) policies and requirements.

DEA Honors Program:

The honors program, which leads to a B.S. degree with honors in Design and Environmental Analysis, gives official recognition to undergraduate students who have demonstrated excellence in their academic work and their capacity for independent research. In addition to fulfilling the requirements for their major, students in the honors program prepare and orally defend an honors thesis. Honors students work with a research mentor in preparing for their thesis. Interested students should obtain a DEA Honors Program application form online. For more information, students should visit the DEA honors website or contact the DEA Honors Representative, Dr. Rana Zadeh.

Academic Advising:

By the beginning of their first semester, all DEA majors are assigned a DEA faculty advisor by the director of undergraduate studies.

Consultation with faculty advisors about future goals, graduation requirements, sequences of courses, and electives inside or outside the college helps students develop their academic programs. Students are free to request change of advisors. Although advisors should be consulted about students’ schedules during course enrollment each semester, it is the student’s responsibility to keep track of his or her courses and to make sure that they make good progress towards graduation requirements for their major and college.

DEA Major

In addition to college requirements , students in the DEA Major must complete specific requirements listed here.

The requirements listed below pertain to all students matriculating in August 2020 and January 2021.

DEA Core Courses

Take all of the following:
DEA 1050   Career Explorations
DEA 1101   Visual Literacy and Design Studio
DEA 1110   Making a Difference: By Design
DEA 1150   Design Graphics and Visualization
DEA 1500   Introduction to Environmental Psychology
DEA 2030   Design Portfolio and Communication
DEA 2510   History of Design Futures
DEA 2730   Human Centered Design Methods
DEA 3590   Problem-Seeking through Programming
DEA 4040   Professional Practices and Ethics
DEA 5304   Design Accountability: Evaluation of the Physical Environment

DEA Thematic Courses

Letter grade only. Three out of the 9 must be studio thematic courses.
Note: Students must take at least one 2000-level studio. Students may not take more than 2 studios in one semester, this includes both DEA and non-DEA studios. Enrollment in 2 studios simultaneously requires approval from both studio instructors. DEA 4990 can fall under any of the three DEA Thematics.

Design, Innovation & Strategy
DEA 2200   Art+Science: Sustainability, Multiculturalism and Transdisciplinarity (formerly DEA 1200)
DEA 2201   Magnifying Small Spaces Studio
DEA 2203   Studio S H I F T
DEA 2550   Design Strategy and Management
DEA 2750   Lighting Design: Light InForming Space
DEA 3050   Construction Documentation: CAD and BIM
DEA 3050   Design UX with Technology Studio
DEA 3306   Generative Design Studio
DEA 3530   Planning and Managing the Workplace
DEA 4402   Disruptive Design: Competitions Studio
DEA 4500   Policy Meets Design: High-Impact Facilities of the 21st Century
DEA 4990   Senior Honors Thesis
DEA 5210   Interaction Design Studio
DEA 5520   Virtual Experience of Designed Environments
DEA 5540   Workplace Strategy Studio

Sustainable Futures
DEA 2020  Introduction to Sustainable Design
DEA 2040  High-Performance Buildings
DEA 2422  Making Green: Sustainable Product Design Studio
DEA 3030  Materials for Design & Sustainability
DEA 3500  The Ambient Environment
DEA 4220  Ecological Literacy and Design
DEA 4401  Adaptive Reuse Studio: Recycling the Built Environment

Health & Well-Being
DEA 2700  Healthy Places: Design, Planning and Public Health
DEA 3308  Positive Design Studio
DEA 3510  Human Factors and Inclusive Design
DEA 4700  Applied Ergonomic Methods
DEA 5305  Health and Healing Studio
DEA 5560   Health Impact Assessment

DEA Research Methods

Choose one of the following courses:
DEA 3550   Research Methods in Human-Environment Relations
ILROB 4710   Social Science Research Methods
PAM 3120   Research Design, Practice and Policy

Psychology Requirement

Psychology Requirement (3 credits)

This fulfills the college distribution social sciences requirement.
Choose one of the following courses:
HD 1150  Human Development: Infancy and Childhood
HD 1170  Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood
PSYCH 1101  Introduction to Psychology

Introductory Economics

Introductory Economics (3 credits)

This fulfills the college distribution social sciences requirement.

ECON 1110 Introductory Microeconomics

Statistics

Statistics (4 credits)

This fulfills the college distribution quantitative and analytical courses requirement.
Must be taken at Cornell, AP Statistics is not accepted
Choose one of the following courses:
PAM 2100  Introduction to Statistics
AEM 2100  Introductory Statistics
ILRST 2100 /STSCI 2100  Introductory Statistics
PSYCH 2500  Statistics and Research Design

Natural Science I and II

Natural Science I (3-4 credits)

This fulfills the college distribution natural sciences requirement.

One of the following:

Biology
BIOG 1140
BIOG 1440 or BIOG 1445
BIOMG 1350
BIOEE 1610
AP Biology score of 5

Chemistry
CHEM 1560 or CHEM 2070
CHEM 2080
AP Chemistry score of 5

PHYSICS
PHYS 1101 or PHYS 2207
PHYS 1102 or PHYS 2208
AP Physics score of 5

Note: If AP isn’t used to satisfy the requirement, then the course must be taken at Cornell.
Note: No lab is required.

Natural Science II (3-4 credits)
Choose any 3 credit course with a PBS, BIOLS-AG, or BIONLS-AG Course Distribution.
Note: No AP credit allowed, course must be taken at Cornell.

DEA Additional Requirements

Additional Requirements (6 credits)
Any course with the Course Distribution PBS, BIOLS-AG, BIONLS-AG, SBA, KCM, MQR, LA, CA, or HA. Language courses may count here.