Professor | Author | Researcher | Designer
Teaching and Mentoring
I believe that design research must be an integral component of senior studio courses to create spaces that provide the most optimal human experiences. Research-informed and evidence-based design solutions are essential in comprehensive senior projects because the combinations of design elements and the integration of research evidence can create environments that meet users' behavior-specific needs.
I integrate my research into my teaching
As a Full Professor of Interior Design, Dr. Suining Ding teaches Interior Design courses at Purdue University Fort Wayne.
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She was selected as a Service-learning Fellow in the Purdue University system’s Service-learning Fellow program in 2021. She has integrated service-learning components into her teaching for almost two decades. Dr. Ding speaks at national and international conferences regularly about her research and Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). She spoke about her service-learning work "Cohesive Integration of Service-learning Components in Interior Design Senior Capstone Studio Courses” at the 2023 Interior Design Educators Council (IDEC) Annual Conference in Vancouver, BC.
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Dr. Ding mentors students through senior capstone courses, practicum courses, and independent studies. She has taught a variety of courses from Freshman to Senior levels.
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She teaches Interior Design senior capstone courses and directs the annual Interior Design Senior Exhibition. Other notable courses Dr. Ding has taught include digital methods for visualizing design concepts and design narratives with a multi-media approach, culture and design: a cross-cultural comparison of architecture from the environment-behavior studies perspective.
My Teaching Philosophy of Integrating Research
It is time to rethink design education. As a profession, design has undergone rapid changes as the design discipline expands its breadth and confronts increasingly complex social and ecological challenges. The design discipline has been intertwined with research, science, and technology, and the design approach has become more human-centered. Since the design discipline is both grounded in research and practice and the advent of evidence-based design several decades ago, design research has become an integral component of the design process. Although the fundamental design principles remain unchanged, the accelerated pace of technological advancements and discoveries in interdisciplinary research has made design education transformation necessary. Amid this accelerated change, designers must respond swiftly to the drastic shifts in the design process and methodology and leverage emerging technologies to generate design solutions that are research-informed and evidence-based.
new course:INTD49900
HEALTHCARE DESIGN
Course Taught by
Dr. Suining Ding, Ph.D. EDAC, NCIDQ, ASID, IDEC
Professor of Interior Design
I will offer a new interior design course INTD49900 Healthcare Design in Fall 2024. This course covers a wide spectrum of topics related to healthcare design including but not limited to:
* The Evolution of Healthcare Architecture
* Patient Room and Nursing Unit Design
* How Design Impact Human Health
* EB Theories in Healthcare Design
* People - Healthcare Environment Interaction
* Different Types of Healthcare Buildings
* Implementation of Research Evidence
* Evidence-based Design