Environmental Design Research Association Announces Recipients of 2014 EDRA Awards

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Environmental Design Research Association

Apr 24, 2014, 08:00 ET

McLean, VA (PRWEB) April 24, 2014 -- The Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA) is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2014 EDRA Awards. These outstanding individuals and organizations will be honored during EDRA’s 45th annual conference, EDRA45NewOrleans, at the Astor Crowne Plaza in New Orleans, Louisiana. Awards will be presented in three categories: the EDRA Career Award; the EDRA Achievement Award; and the EDRA Organization Award for Excellence in Environmental Design Research, Application, or Education.

The EDRA Career Award is given in recognition of a career of sustained and significant contributions to environment design research, practice, or teaching. The 2014 recipients are:

  • Roberta M. Feldman, M. Arch., Ph.D., Professor Emerita, School of Architecture, University of Illinois at Chicago, an architectural activist, researcher, and educator committed to democratic design. Feldman co-founded the City Design Center (CDC) at the University of Illinois at Chicago where she has been engaged in community design and research for more than 30 years. Her work at the CDC embraces participatory design and action research practices with over 50 community organizations and development corporations in Chicago’s low-income neighborhoods.
  • Lynda H. Schneekloth, Professor Emerita, Department of Architecture, State University of New York at Buffalo, an educator who has connected activism, design practice, applied research, teaching, scholarship, and academic service with deep theoretical work on the fundamental dynamics of professional and citizen engagement in the practice of placemaking for over 40 years. Schneekloth is author or editor of six books, including co-editor of the seminal work on type, "Ordering Space".
  • Sue Weidemann, Ph.D., President and Director of Research, BOSTI Associates, an environmental psychologist who, for over four decades, has studied the relationships between people and the places and spaces they use, through her research, teaching, and consulting. Weidemann’s pioneering research on housing satisfaction and office design has resulted in new survey instruments developed for assessing residential satisfaction, and her contributions to social science research methods and their application to pressing design problems using sophisticated methods of data analysis are truly exceptional.

The EDRA Achievement Award is given in recognition of a specific contribution or achievement that advances the field of environmental design research through the generation of knowledge, public service, or professional practice, for coherent recognizable body of work or activities by an individual or group. The 2014 recipients are:

  • “The Economics of Biophilia”, produced by Terrapin Bright Green, a 40-page summation of a research effort that codifies several bodies of scientific study – in environmental psychology, neurobiology and epidemiology – into palpable, design-oriented concepts with aggregated financial impacts for individuals and society.
  • "Place Attachment: Advances in Theory, Methods and Applications", edited by Lynne Manzo and Patrick Devine-Wright, a book unique in exploring applications of place attachment theory and research to such topics as global climate change, mobility studies, public housing redevelopment, intergroup conflict, nature resource management, environmental criminology, pro-environmental behavior and civic engagement.

The EDRA Organization Award for Excellence in Environmental Design Research, Application, or Education recognizes organizations whose work contributes to EDRA's mission to facilitate the creation of environments that are responsive to human needs and to encourage closer collaboration with them in the future. As recipients of the award it is intended to help validate the organizations as they endeavor to influence governments, universities, and the design professions to conduct, apply, and publish environmental design research. The 2014 recipient is:

  • The Center for Health Design, an organization whose mission is to transform healthcare environments for a healthier, safer world through design research, education, and advocacy. For the past 20 years, The Center has provided healthcare and design professionals – as well as product manufacturers, vendors, students, and educators – the knowledge and expertise to build high-quality, safer, more-effective healthcare facilities.

All 2014 recipients will be honored at the EDRA Awards Banquet on Saturday, May 31, 2014. Tickets to the Awards Banquet are available for $90 and can be purchased by clicking here.

About EDRA: The Environmental Design Research Association is an international, interdisciplinary organization founded in 1969 by architects and psychologists concerned with integrating people's needs in shaping the built environment. EDRA exists to advance and disseminate environmental design research, thereby improving understanding of the inter-relationships of people with their built and natural surroundings toward creation and curation of environments responsive to human needs. For more information, visit http://www.edra.org.

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Kate O'Donnell, Environmental Design Research Association, http://www.edra.org, +1 (703) 506-2895, [email protected]