The World Institute of Psychology identifies multiple links between mood, behavior and learning, and the objects and spaces we interact with and occupy daily. The World Health Organizationconsiders questions like the global increase in dementia as issues that can be tackled, in part, through design. The National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research underlines how environments can actively exclude whole sections of society by design itself. At the same time, the Industrial Designers Society of America sees product design in the light of inclusivity for people of all abilities, geographies and cultures and the US Department of Arts and Culture argues art has a three-fold role to play in nurturing a culture of health: prevention, advocacy and treatment. The American Institute of Architects lists user experience and inclusivity as essential components of design education and thinking, while the Interior Design Educators Councilhighlights ‘human orientated design’ as essential to good practice in all fields, whether that be the design of schools, classrooms, health spaces, retail, offices or the home.

In this now well established context, this conference offers a unique invitation to engage in cross disciplinary discourse around the role of people, objects and environments and how our individual practices and professions are, in reality, inseparable from each other. It is interested in perspectives from a whole range of fields, including:

Interiors   |   Products   |   Health   |   Psychology   |   Education   |   Furniture   |   Wellbeing  |   Art   |   Architecture   |   Universal Design   |   Urbanism  |  Landscape   |   Occupational Therapy

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Disciplines:

Using this expressly cross disciplinary forum, the conference asks how the things and spaces we design and create are experienced and how they impact on people: their potential, wellbeing, social inclusion, learning capacity, desires, actions, behaviors, moods, thinking, and more.

In doing so, it suggests that artists and designers need to understand the insights of psychologists, health professionals, educators and diverse user groups to create the products and spaces we will all need in the future, whether they be: the interiors we inhabit most of our lives; the health spaces we design for the ill; the classrooms in which we educate our children; the  interfaces of our apps; the products we use in the home; the furniture in the streets we walk along; the buildings we envisage and construct; the cities we plan and program.

Full Provocation. Designers, artists and architects.

It also suggests health professionals, environmental psychologists, educators and diverse user groups need to work more closely with artists and designers to fully benefit the people they support, whether that be: by helping create dementia friendly spaces; participating in domestic product development; aiding in the creation of apps for child safety; advising on mood stimuli in gaming design; creating accessible and stress reducing public spaces; or producing more effective work and teaching environments etc.

Full Provocation.  Wellbeing, health and education professionals and groups.

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Formats: Using various discipline perspectives as broad strands, conference presentations will be organised in several sub themes. The result will be a coherent but varied conference. To make the event as inclusive as possible, delegates can attend in-person but can also avoid travel costs by making their presentation as a pre-recorded film. It will be permanently available via the AMPS YouTube channel. Alternatively, they may be able to present virtually via skype. In all cases, written papers are also acceptable.

Possible Formats include: Pre-recorded film (20 minutes) | Skype (20 minutes) | Conference Presentations (20 minutes) | Written Papers (3,000 words)1

• 1. After review selected authors will be invited to extend their initial 3000 words paper to full book chapter or journal article length.