Human Betterment by Design with Shashi Caan
Shashi Caan believes that:
“You have to be at the cutting edge of innovation, if not, you are not really an architect or a designer”
Shashi Caan talks about the cultural color differences among the three continents that she has lived on, the application of color in architecture and her life mission to increase human betterment through color and design in the world. From generation gaps to the main design principles to futurist thinking, Shashi Caan her passion for her profession sparks through the entire conversation. Shashi is all about collaboration and understanding what is going on in the world to find solutions to today's problems.
Shashi Caan is a distinguished thought leader for architectural design internationally. As a practitioner, design educator and author, her dedication to furthering human betterment through and by design is reflected in her 30- year design career. Co-founder and leader of THE SC COLLECTIVE (2002), the inventively structured firm, Shashi is also the Co- founder and President of Globally We Design – GloWD (2015), an independent design futures think thank, through which her ReDesignEd Educators Forum facilitated the Universal Design Education Charter in 2018 and The Johannesburg Declaration in 2019. Shashi was formerly Associate Partner and Design Director with Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM), in New York and Chair of the Interior Design Department at Parsons, the New School for Design. In her service to industry capacity, Shashi also serves as Chief Executive Officer on the Executive Committee of International Federation of Interior Architects/Designers (IFI) Executive Board. She is a former two-term President for the International Federation of Interior Architects/Designers (IFI) and has been recognized as a Fellow of the IFI and Fellow of Royal Society of the Arts, UK. She holds honorary fellowships from the Australian Institute of Designers, the British Institute of Interior Design, as well as the American Society of Interior Design. Amongst others, her past volunteer and executive board level service includes the US International Interior Design Association (IIDA) , NY’s Interiors Committee of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), and the United Nations Association (UNA). She was Contract Magazine’s US Designer of the Year (2004), granted the Golden Seat Architectural Master Award of China (2012), and appointed JDP Design Ambassador to Japan (2013), this amongst her many awards and accolades for design projects and design leadership across the world. With countless published writings, her seminal book, Rethinking Design and Interiors: Human Beings in the Built Environment (2011), has been translated into multiple languages.
