IDISC 1544—Design Beyond Crisis: Harm Reduction Centers for RI

Interior Architecture and Industrial Design students develop compassionate configurations of products, services, environments, systems and visual culture for the pilot of Harm Reduction Centers in Rhode Island.

This course coincided with Rhode Island Department of Health’s release of guidelines for the newly legalized overdose prevention sites. Our external partners were deep in the work of both creating the law and implementing a site. They had also been participants in the COBRE-sponsored Equitable Futures Studio that we ran in the summer of 2020. The report from that studio as well as a number of essays from the 2021 Carry Forward symposium formed a foundation for student investigations. Outcomes of the student work were in turn featured in a booth — co-curated with the COBRE and RICARES — at the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association and in a feature article in the Providence Journal.

Spring 2021 — 6 Credit Studio

Faculty
Justin Cook, Tim Maly

Partners
COBRE on Opioids and Overdose
Project Weber/RENEW
Senator Josh Miller