Kia Weatherspoon will speak at 4 p.m., Monday, March 14, at Ken and Linda Sue Shollmier Hall, Room 250, Vol Walker Hall on the U of A campus, as part of the Spring Lecture Series at the Fay Jones School of Architecture. and Design. The conference can also be viewed live via Zoom.

Weatherspoon, NCIDQ, ASID, is president of Determined by Design in Washington, DC

The Fay Jones School Spring Lecture Series is presented in conjunction with Diary of placesan internationally recognized online journal of architecture, landscape architecture and urban planning.

Registration for the online version of the conference is available on Zoom.

In his talk, “Design Without Labels,” Weatherspoon will explore how everyone lives in a world of labels — corporate, hospitality, senior, millennial, black, white, affordable, upscale, and more. While these descriptors and identifiers may have been intended to support sales, marketing, and other functions, they essentially created a more polarized human experience and hindered creativity and Design Equity™. These labels keep design professionals from thinking outside the box and delivering the best possible solutions to clients. Labels have made design out of reach for some people, when well-designed spaces should be a standard for all, not a luxury for a few.

In this presentation, Weatherspoon will help the audience recognize the impact of labels, demographics and data on the design process. She will share her mission of Design Equity™, challenging professionals to approach projects with an emphasis on community and the collective human experience. She believes that change is possible through design. By adjusting language and leading a more inclusive design process, architects and designers can empathetically create and develop thoughtful designs that tell stories, connect people, and unite communities.

Through this presentation, Weatherspoon will challenge businesses and design professionals to support an inclusive design process to properly reflect the communities they serve and inspire the next generation of designers and architects.

“As designers, as people, we need to remove labels so we can do better,” Weatherspoon said. “These labels disrupt entire communities. We want diversity, fairness in design, and different outcomes, so we have to constantly challenge ourselves to do better.”

As the voice of design for impact and change, Weatherspoon has spent the past 15 years challenging all design stereotypes. The most damaging of these is that interior design is a luxury reserved for the few. Her voice, her advocacy for Design Equity™ and her design practice changed the narrative, making interior design a standard for all.

She has become the design leader, educator, business owner and speaker she has never seen. In doing so, she received a National Design for Humanity Award from the American Society of Interior Designers and HIP Designer for Good by Interior design magazine. She is also a recipient of the Raise Up Your Voice Award from Commercial Real Estate Women Washington DC (CREW DC) and a recipient of the Luna Textile/Anna Hernandez Visionary Award from the International Interior Design Association.

She is also a full-time teacher, sought-after speaker and mentor. It demonstrates what is possible when you are determined by design.

The school pursues continuing education credits for this conference through the American Institute of Architects.

This conference is open to the public. Admission is free, with a limited number of places. For more details on how to watch the lecture online, please visit the Fay Jones School lecture page. To register for the entire online lecture series, complete this form on Zoom.

For more information, contact 479-575-4704 or fayjones.uark.edu.