Students learn about interior design for vets in Oct. 15 lectures

What are the best ways to design health care facilities for recovering military veterans?

The MTSU Student Chapter of the American Society of Interior Designers and the Department of Human Sciences will tackle that subject in their 2015 lecture series at 6 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 15, in Maney Hall at Oaklands Historic House Museum, 900 N. Maney Ave. in Murfreesboro. The event is free and open to the public.

“Department of Veterans Affairs: Interior Design Impacts the Human Experience through Measurable Design Strategies” is the presentation’s theme. The federal agency is assessing its facility needs along with such factors as construction and maintenance costs, affordable care, staff recruitment and patient safety. Dept of VA seal

One of the featured speakers, Teresa Tillman, is interior designer and medical equipment manager for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ medical center in Birmingham, Alabama.

For more than 10 years, Tillman had a similar position at the Tuscaloosa, Alabama, VA center, where she transformed the campus to include hospice care, a women’s veterans unit and a skilled nursing care cottage.

“We feel like we are on the cusp of something new here, and this is a perfect model, where the focus is on the veteran and not the staff,” Tillman said of the cottage in the Winter 2012 edition of “Tuscaloosa VA All Star News.”

Another speaker, AnnMarie Jackson, is director of interior design for the firm of Sherlock, Smith & Adams. She was a part of the community living center design team in Tuscaloosa and also worked on a facility for homeless veterans in Ft. McPherson, Georgia.

Jackson’s work emphasizes evidence-based design practices focusing on the design environment’s impact on the human experience. She recently served on the ASID national board of directors.

ASID is the oldest, largest and leading professional organization for interior designers with more than 24,000 members.

A reception will precede the lectures at 5 p.m. in Maney Hall. For more information, contact Deborah Belcher, chair of the MTSU Department of Human Sciences, at 615-898-2302, or deborah.belcher@mtsu.edu, or Oaklands Historic House Museum at 615-893-0022.

— Gina Logue (gina.logue@mtsu.edu)