INTtalks - Teaching Sustainability I

This INTtalks celebrates how the Interior Design Faculties integrate sustainability in their courses. The aim is for our design community to be able to share, discuss and expand our knowledge in environmental awareness, social justice and human wellness so that everyone can benefit from one another. This discussion will be moderated by Tetsu Ohara, with panelists Robert Nassar, Keena Suh, and Annie Coggan of the Pratt Interior Design Department. This event is hosted in conjunction with 2021 Pratt Earth Action Week.

Please register for Zoom link details.

Moderator: Tetsu Ohara, Adjunct Associate Professor CCE

Although primarily teaching the Graduate Level core studio since 2007, Tetsu has introduced courses related to environmental awareness (Biomimicry and Indoor Environmental Quality) for the School of Design/Architecture. As a Departmental Sustainability Coordinator, he shares his insight as part of the curriculum committee to integrate sustainability for both undergraduate and graduate levels. Also, through Pratt Sustainability Coalition, he has led efforts in organizing/coordinating presentations, exhibitions and workshops for campus-wide events now called Earth Action Week for the past 13 years. Professionally, he has engaged in design projects in both the East & West spanning from exhibition design, residential design, to architectural services. He is a partner at SpatialDesignStudio in NYC.

Panel: Robert Nassar, Keena Suh, and Annie Coggan

Robert Nassar is an interior designer based in New York. His work includes residential, retail and office design in the US and abroad, as well as home furnishings and product design. Contemporary in its approach, his design philosophy addresses longevity of style along with current trends and specific needs of individual clients. Simple unadorned designs with a subtle play of color and texture are distinctive characteristics of his work. Robert is part-time adjunct professor of interior design at Pratt Institute.

Keena Suh is an Associate Professor in the Interior Design Department at Pratt Institute where, as a full-time faculty member, she currently coordinates the construction courses in the undergraduate and graduate programs and chairs the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee. With an MArch from Columbia University, she has over twenty years of active professional practice in architecture and interior design, ranging from affordable housing to commercial and high-end residential design. Her interest in collaborative design practices complements her pedagogical focus to foster innovative learning and teaching opportunities through cross-disciplinary collaborations and community engagement. She is a co-editor of Interior Provocations: History, Theory and Practice of Autonomous Interiors and section editor of the forthcoming Interior Provocations: Appropriate(d) Interiors.

Annie Coggan is a designer, artist, educator and a principal at Coggan + Crawford Architecture and Design based in Brooklyn, NY. She is an Associate Professor at Pratt Institute in the Interior Design Department. A native of Atlanta, Georgia, Coggan received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Bennington College in Vermont and her Master of Architecture from the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc), Los Angeles CA. Her work has been exhibited at A D/B Project Space (Brooklyn), Gestarc Gallery (Brooklyn), Barbara Toll Fine Arts (Manhattan), the Textile Arts Center (Brooklyn), Mississippi CAAD Visual Arts Center, and more. She has curated exhibitions at TODA (New York) and Irondale Center for the Arts (Brooklyn), amongst others. She has been featured in Furniture A+D, Journal of Architectural Education, design*sponge and Remodelista. In 2010, she was an artist in residence at the Textile Arts Center in Brooklyn. She is a contributing editor for the literary magazine A Public Space, the book reviewer for the Center for Architecture’s Book Talk series.

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