‘What the 21st century demands’: designing homes to improve patients’ health
New interior design programs train students to use lighting, acoustics, and fabric to make day-to-day living easier for people with medical conditions.
LAS VEGAS — On a recent morning at this training ground for a new breed of interior designers, a lesson in empathy came in the form of a badminton game.
Students strapped on eye patches and scratched-up swim goggles and took turns clumsily swatting the shuttlecock — an exercise meant to simulate the challenges of conditions like diabetic retinopathy and wet macular degeneration. Afterward, they talked about how to place windows, furniture, and guardrails to make it easier for people with vision problems to move around.
The class here at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, is part
