Beyond Well-being : Contemplative Design Technology for a Flourishing Built World

It is a human right of all individuals to have access to resources that promote not just their first-order needs but also their higher order human needs of self-actualization and self-transcendence as defined by Maslow. Recent neuroscience research is revealing that the built environments we inhabit everyday have the potential to become a powerful mediator of this level of human flourishing at fundamental physiological, psychological and neurological levels.

As humanity braces for the unprecedented global challenges of the coming decades, we as architects and designers have to dare to design an equitable built world of flourishing, not just well-being, for all. How can we successfully meet this challenge?

In this 90-minute interactive workshop you will learn about exciting findings from the field of neuroaesthetics that will expand your ability to design flourishing spaces more intentionally. You will also engage in several fun and evidence-based design tools and practices that draw on the new science of human flourishing and ancient contemplative practices to help you build greater creative agency, foster conscious collaboration, deepen self-knowledge, and instill momentum in your daily design life.

By tapping into the rich inner resources of empathic imagination and meaning you already possess, you will be able to better infuse these essential qualities into your designed environments to nurture flourishing equally for everyone. Through this sophisticated technology you will begin to embrace a fresh, inclusive, and interdependent way of doing Contemplative Design through becoming a Contemplative Designer. 

Learning Objectives:

• Engage with novel insights from research in neuroaesthetics and the science of human flourishing to better inform the intentional design of equitable flourishing spaces.
• Cultivate creative agency by building your personal “inner sanctuary for creativity” to transform auto-pilot reactions to design challenges into resources for design.
• Foster conscious collaboration with colleagues, clients and end-users by deploying the “first contact method of listening” where empathy and wonder reduce habits of implicit bias and conditioned thinking.
• Deepen self-knowledge through reflectively declaring “your design maxim”synergizing core values and your intention for design.
• Embody meaning in daily design practice through deploying the “design momentum equation”to put design intention into action throughout the course of complex projects.

This program is approved for 1.5 LUs

About the Speaker:

Sarika Bajoria

Founder, Contemplative Designer

Principal, Sarika Bajoria Unlimited

Adjunct Professor, Parsons School of Constructed Environments

Sarika Bajoria founded Contemplative Designer and her design practice Sarika Bajoria Unlimited with the singular vision to bring about a built world where every day “outer spaces” are mediators of human flourishing, not just well-being. To achieve this goal, she believes that we as designers have to intentionally build an “inner space” of flourishing within.

Synthesizing 22 years of practicing architecture at firms including Skidmore Owings Merrill and Perkins & Will and 16 years of teaching contemplative practice, Sarika has developed a framework for a contemplative design process that she teaches through workshops and keynotes at different forums to empower designers and architects with the technologies to transform challenges and burnout into resources of empathic imagination and meaning. As an Adjunct Professor at Parsons School of Design she brings the contemplative design framework to the classroom.

Sarika has been recognized with several awards including “Building Design+Construction 40 under 40” and “Engineering News Record New York Top 20 under 40” and has held leadership roles at organizations like Architecture for Humanity. She obtained her Masters in Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania and Bachelor of Arts in Physics, Math and Art from Luther College, Iowa.