WDM’s Emily Ambery caught up with 2023 Next Work Environment Student Competition Winner, Haley Giroux. Since winning the competition, Haley has followed through on her winning project, Mindworks, made incredible connections in the industry and completed her degree with an inspiring capstone project.
MindWorks Today
Giroux’s project, MindWorks, contributed to the designing for neurodiversity conversation by creating a space where people on the autism spectrum could work and thrive.
“The central idea of it is microenvironments, different zones that have varying levels of physical, auditory and visual sensory inputs, to give neurodiverse people options of where they can work that day. It helps them harness their full potential in the office.”
Since submitting and winning, Giroux created a full 23-page construction document for the project. From ideation to planning for safety, demolition, RCP, wall types and more, Giroux remains proud of the project she submitted. This project sparked Giroux’s interest in publication and sharing information via articles.
In May, Giroux authored “Fidget to Focus: Unlocking Workplace Potential with Inclusive Furniture.” She was able to expand on her project, urging wider spread implementation of inclusive design and list out innovative products designed with the ‘fidget factor’ in mind.
New Connections
Part of winning in 2023, was a trip to IFMA World Workplace in Denver thanks to the generous support of Tango. There, Giroux said she made more than 200 connections in the field and offered her new perspective on design by thinking about facilities management.
IFMA and the scholarship opportunity changed everything.
While at the conference, Giroux was excited to see a keynote speaker and was able to speak with Kate North of Workplace Evolutionaries and David Gray, a co-host of the webinar, “MoshPit.” After speaking with the hosts, Giroux was able to speak on the webinar about the project and neurodiversity in general. Hear Haley’s Episode here.
“The whole experience connected me to three times the amount of people that I would have been connected to, and it helped me grow as a rising designer,” Giroux said. “And then it also helped me in being an advocate for DEIB design.”
Advice for the Rising Designer
Finding herself as the only undergrad interior at the IFMA conference, Giroux used her experience in the competition and opening herself up to conversations to ease some of her nerves.
“Just the fact that I showed up made a difference. Everybody was interested in what I had to say because I have, as a Gen Z person, the answers to the future design industry problems. So, once I kind of sat with that fact, I was like, wait, they want to talk to me, I have ideas.”
I could be a piece of the puzzle.
Being a piece of the puzzle did not come easy for Giroux. She said that she is know for putting in the extra leg work. Before submitting MindWorks, as a Junior in college, she hit a few tight deadlines, reusing materials that were not correct and decided to completely redesign the second floor.
“That extra push was what got me into that top tier.” Giroux said. “Do the extra tender love and care because pushing it to reach that final form is so worth it. It was so worth it.”
A Brave Idea: The Gender Informed Unit
Over the course of her senior year, Giroux spent 16 months working on her capstone project. Her project focuses on the transgender prison crisis, a human rights design issue.
Due to various legislation and regulation, Giroux found that transgender and other-gendered incarcerated individuals are often housed in solitary confinement, where they have no access to amenities, healthcare, therapy, or contact with loved ones.
Noticing there was no safe and rehabilitative housing solution for trans people in prison, Giroux set out on the difficult yet important journey of addressing this gap in design.
“My solution was designing the housing screening and application assignment process itself to properly assign them to housing units,” Giroux said. “And then I designed a housing unit with five different types of living arrangements for them. So, I called it a gender informed unit.”
The project included personal interviews, legislative and architecture research, manuscript writing and a presentation to professionals and peers in the field.
“US records show that over 200,000 trans people have been or are incarcerated,” she said. “So, this project, a minimum security, trauma informed, gender sensitive, PREA compliant housing unit, could potentially save 1000s of lives.”
The whole project experience was transformative for Giroux and she remembers one of the compliments she received was that this was a brave topic.
Up Next
Giroux credits her education, taking opportunities at IFMA, connections and her experience in the Next Work Environment Competition for getting her to where she is professionally.
Her next steps are getting LEED certified and a full time designer position at Wegmans Family New Build Team.
In the future, Giroux hopes to return to Rochester Institute of Technology for a masters in Architecture.
Are you the next Haley Giroux? Enter the 2024 Student Competition Today!
Cycle 5 of our Innovation Competition is the place to let your creative ideas shine & potentially earn you a scholarship!
The Next Work Environment Competition is a transformative opportunity to shape the future of work environments before you get there. We invite creative minds from around the world to share their ideas. As we strive to create workspaces and experiences that inspire, nurture, and empower individuals, we offer an extraordinary incentive: the chance to make a profound impact on people’s lives.
You can redefine what’s possible.
The 2024 Next Work Environment Student Competition is generously supported by:
Special thanks to our overall Competition sponsors:
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