Educator, author, and design thought leader Shashi Caan will give the keynote address for the School of Interiors 50th Anniversary Celebration on Friday, October 21 at 3:30 p.m. in the Worsham Theater at the Gatton Student Center. The keynote, Future Design & Sustain-Ability, will challenge future designers to excellence by examining future trends and issues in design.
Founding principal of SC Collective and co-founder and president of Globally We Design, Shashi Caan is acclaimed internationally for bridging the divide between design practice, theory, and education. She has held senior positions at major firms, including Gensler, and Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM). Caan is the former Chair of the Interior Design Department at Parsons The New School of Design in New York City. She holds master’s degrees in both Architecture and in Industrial Design from Pratt Institute, and a BFA (with honors) from Edinburgh College of Art in the United Kingdom.
In her leadership roles with a roster of global clients, institutions, and firms, she has focused on meaningful improvement of life quality as shaped by design. Often described as a futurist and visionary, she has a keen interest in foundational developments for the design discipline to address current topical challenges and impacts. She is the recipient of numerous awards and has been conferred international, regional and national professional fellowships from the International Federation of Interior Architects/Designers – IFI, Latin America, Australia, the UK, and the US.
Shashi was Contract Magazine’s 25th US Designer of the Year (2004), granted the Golden Seat Architectural Master Award of China (2012), and appointed JDP Design Ambassador to Japan (2013), amongst her many awards and accolades for design projects and design leadership across the world. She was recognized as IFMA’s (2006) Educator of Year. With countless published writings, her seminal book, Rethinking Design and Interiors: Human Beings in the Built Environment (2011), has been translated into multiple languages.
This event is co-sponsored by the UK School of Interiors, the UK International Center, the Gaines Center for the Humanities, and the UK Office of Sustainability.
