Episode #2
Laura Battaglia
Architect and interior design educator Laura Battaglia and former student Eiman Rasheed discuss an ongoing memorialization project and how empathic design centers the human experience in interior spaces. --- About Laura Battaglia Laura Battaglia is an architect, educator and researcher whose work advances a collaborative, community-centered vision of design—one in which scholarship emerges as an ecosystem connecting communities, students and their physical environments. Her interdisciplinary research examines how empathic and community-engaged design can foster reconciliation, preserve public memory and generate social impact; how collaboration across architecture, design, engineering and public policy can advance sustainable and equitable housing; and how design education can serve as scholarship through research, competition, mentorship and public engagement. An Assistant Professor of Interior Design in the School of the Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University, she previously taught at Hampton University, North Carolina State University and the Art Institute of Virginia Beach. A defining dimension of Battaglia’s work is expanding access to design education. At Hampton University, she founded and directed ARCHICAMP, introducing middle school students of color to architecture and creating pathways into the profession. As founder of Studio|Battaglia and HouseLAB, she connects scholarship, professional practice, teaching and civic engagement. A VCU NIRA scholar and board member of Historic Richmond, Battaglia advances design education as a vehicle for critical thinking, cultural understanding, inclusion and more equitable futures. About Eiman Rasheed Eiman Rasheed is an interior designer whose work explores how empathy, community engagement and human experience can inform the design of meaningful environments. Her approach considers how material, light and spatial experience can shape the ways people gather, connect and develop a sense of belonging. A graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University’s Department of Interior Design, her academic work examined the role of design in supporting community, equity, sustainability and shared experience. While at VCU, Rasheed contributed to St. Mark’s Grove in Sewanee, Tennessee, a cross-disciplinary project centered on remembrance, reconciliation and community engagement. She also served as a research assistant examining empathic design pedagogy and community-engaged design. As part of VCU’s 2024 Solar Decathlon team, she contributed to the Reimagined Rowhouse, a housing proposal exploring sustainability, accessibility and equity in Richmond. Rasheed currently works as an interior designer at Hickok Cole in Richmond, Virginia, where she continues to develop a design practice grounded in empathy, curiosity and the creation of environments that support connection, exploration and belonging. --- VCUarts Uncharted is recorded in the Community Media Center in the Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU . Music by Felipe Leitão . For more information, visit arts.vcu.edu/uncharted .
