RESEARCH FOCUSES:

- Designing Spaces Empathetically

- Design + Healthy Eating Habits

- Food Waste + Food Pantries

- Learning Through Teaching Kitchens

Through these topics, this research will seek to inform this project and answer the project questions. With the chosen topics, the aim is to inform the most important/focused areas of the project to design them as accurately and intentionally as possible.

Empowerment, wellness, empathy, and nutrition/food education are strong themes throughout the project as well. Subsequently, it is imperative that every part of the design incorporates this, from designing for all socioeconomic statuses, to promoting healthy eating habits, to designing for learning, to how to cook healthy meals through the teaching kitchen. These research topics were chosen to best inform the design principles, as well as provide context for why certina programs were ultimately chosen. As part of the teaching kitchen, a greenhouse has also been included to further produce education.

The other main emphasis for this capstone is the focus on sustainability regarding reducing food waste. This is an an important point of research because food waste comprises 17% of Nebraska’s municipal waste, making it the third-largest contributor to landfill waste in all of Nebraska, and first in Omaha.