Biography

I am Kirstin Niebuhr. I am currently doing my master's in Interior Architecture. I finished my Bachelor of Science in Interior Architecture in 2018. Thereafter I worked for a year at Paragon Interface and JK Designs. Throughout my studies and my career, my passion grew for Public Interest Design. This discourse combines both of my fields of interest for people and interior design. Public Interest Design focuses on focusing on the needs of the user and involving the user in the design process.
This year I look forward to living out my passion in Mamelodi. I want to see how Interior architecture can be used as a tool to connect with people from different walks of life

Discipline/s

Built Environment -
Professional Masters of Interior Architecture
Occupational Therapy

Research description

The Research Aim is to provide versatile interior or urban interior spaces that respond to the needs of adolescents (12-18 years) enrolled in the Pre-University Academy, acting as a catalyst to improve their developmental skills and therefore their identity and belonging (Louw & Louw 2013). A strong focus will be geared towards the role of the educational interior space in a child’s life, striving to influence and enhance the educational ecosystem in Mamelodi East, by ultimately starting at the essential needs of children throughout their entire lives (Louw & Louw 2013). It can therefore be said that the interior spaces on the Mamelodi Campus could act as a tool to enhance the educational ecosystem as a learning space for children through collating qualitative and quantitative data within collaborative and participatory design methods (Porter 2019)

.
Through these objectives, it can be derived that the main aim is towards creating a tangible shared language that provides a platform to mediate different world views (Thomas & McDonagh 2013). Through this, the aim would be to fill the gaps and understanding between different backgrounds, worldviews, and beliefs within the Relational Knowledge system (Wildervuur et al 2013).
This links to One Health for Change in that I will be mentored in developing a project that is transdisciplinary in nature and that uses the skills from occupational therapy in its relational element.