January 13, 2021 Interior Architecture Students Explore Post-COVID-19 Workplaces

Hochung Kim, assistant professor in the School of Interior Architecture, created a timely opportunity for students to reimagine the workplace. The fall 2020 studio investigated the definition of workplaces, how they have changed in the course of history and how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted how we work.

In the studio, students focused on what it means to be in a workplace in the present COVID-19 pandemic along with what workplaces might look like in the future. Kim challenged his students to think about how work settings will change and shape our future based on restrictions, social awareness, health conditions, new opportunities and more.

Students researched key events that have changed workplaces over the course of history, developed a series of models and learned how to use software that allowed them to produce various architectural forms and formalize them into a singular design language.

“There are so many different elements that are part of the workplace and many aspects of design that are unseen to the average person,” said student Jacob Abdu. “Something that was integral to my research was understanding the impact of power structures in the workplace and ways that we as designers can work to actively change the way we perceive power and position at work.”

The students’ use of new software relates to Kim’s current research funded in part by the College of Architecture and Design Faculty Development Award. This research investigates the outcomes of integrating the latest technology for multiple working environments.

Courses like this one demonstrate our faculty’s ingenuity to provide exceptional learning opportunities, even by using a pandemic as a learning platform.

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Learn about another professor in our college who went above and beyond to help students in these unprecedented times.

Learn more about the School of Interior Architecture.