Stuckeman School lecture series continues with a talk on trauma-informed design

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The College of Arts and Architecture’s Stuckeman School at Penn State continues its 2023-24 Lecture and Exhibit Series at 4:30 p.m. on Oct. 18 with Julie Stevens, associate professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture at Iowa State University who specializes in trauma-informed design. The event, which will be held in the Stuckeman Family Building Jury Space and via Zoom, is also a Department of Landscape Architecture Bracken Lecture.

Titled, “Trauma-Informed Design in Theory and in Practice,” Stevens’ lecture will discuss an emerging practice: trauma-informed design which involves designing with people who have experienced trauma by using a more compassionate process coupled with research and evidence to support those living with the effects of trauma.

“Now is a good time for the design world to pause and consider all of the ways our designed environments positively and negatively impact the people who live, work and play in them,” Stevens said. “Can we also pause and confront the ways in which the traditional design ‘process’ is denying individuals and communities, especially those living on the margins of our society, the opportunity to co-design and make positive changes in their homes and communities?”

Trauma-informed design often focuses on aligning with the Trauma-Informed Care principles which the Center for Disease Control and Prevention lists as safety; trustworthiness and transparency; peer support; collaboration and mutuality; empowerment; and choice, cultural; historical and gender issues.

At Iowa State, Stevens established a partnership with the Iowa Department of Corrections to create therapeutic environments for prisons, such as gardens for prison staff and incarcerated individuals. A team of students, prison staff and incarcerated individuals at the Iowa Correctional Institution for Women received the Award of Excellence in Student Community Service from the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) in 2015 for the ICIW Outdoor Classrooms and the 2018 ASLA Award of Excellence in Student Community Service for the Children’s Garden, a visiting garden for incarcerated women and their visitors.

Stevens is also developing a trauma-informed design program focused on bringing the healing powers of nature to vulnerable and underserved children and adults. This work received the 2023 ASLA Award of Excellence in Student Community Service.

Stevens is a founder and co-chair of the ASLA’s Environmental Justice Professional Practice Network, which focuses on creating healthy environments by integrating environmental justice issues into landscape architectural education, research and professional practice.

She has contributed to books such as “Design as Democracy: Techniques for Collective Creativity,” “The Palgrave Handbook of Prison Design” and a forthcoming book titled, “The Routledge Handbook of the Built Environments of Diverse Childhoods.”

Events in the Stuckeman School Lecture and Exhibit Series are free and open to the public.