UNIVERSITY OF SASKATCHEWAN
One-of-a-kind USask lab bridges engineering and community

A centralized, collaborative, accessible desk area. A couch and a cool-down space. Fidgets and heated blankets. Hands-on printmaking and 3D-printer workspaces.

(Left to right, top to bottom) Ines Sanches Rodruguez, Dr. Lori Bradford (PhD), Dr. Renata Mont'Alverne (PhD), Russell Mba, Lindsay Tumback, Esther Kähne and Akinola Ogbeyemi stand in front of the Engineering Design Mutualism Lab mobile trailer. (Photo: Matt Olson)

It's a lab outfitted with technology needed to explore interdisciplinary design work but built specifically to be inviting and inclusive.

This is the Engineering Design Mutualism (EDM) Laboratory, a unique hub at USask intended to promote collaboration in cutting-edge engineering design between researchers and to support collaborative work between researchers and community partners, rights holders and co-researchers.

"It's a place where we want people of different disciplines to feel welcome sharing their perspectives on different engineering design aspects and protocols," said Dr. Lori Bradford (PhD), an associate professor in the Ron and Jane Graham School of Professional Development in USask's College of Engineering and a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Social and Cultural Decision-Making in Engineering Design. "We have fine arts students who are involved in theatre and visual arts and music, engineers from different engineering disciplines, social sciences and humanities experts ... It's a real variety."

The EDM Lab under Bradford's guidance is exploring innovative solutions to engineering design questions by thinking outside the box and putting a focus on directly connecting with the public for more thoughtful and informed design decision-making.

From creating puppets for communicating research and lived experiences with local communities, to 3D printing architectural design layouts for new subdivisions, to considering new materials for building wheelchairs based on feedback from wheelchair users, the EDM Lab is active in the engineering space with collaboration and inclusivity at the forefront.

"It's an understanding that everyone has perspectives to share on a problem, and when we narrow whose perspectives are included sometimes we miss those pieces that could help us solve the problem in a way that could engage more people and be a better solution for everybody," Bradford said.

Akinola Ogbeyemi, a PhD student working in the lab, said it was critical to have community rights holders as a core part of the design process for his PhD work, which the EDM Lab emphasizes.

Using the lab's 3D printer, Ogbeyemi printed a model of a new health-care building by incorporating feedback from Plains and Swampy Cree partners to turn a proposed "hub-and-spoke" vision of health care into a physical representation.

See it, feel it and adapt it before you build it. It's one of many ways Ogbeyemi and others in the lab have been able to turn collaboration into something tangible.

"We can use 3D scanners, 3D printing and artistic processes to create prototypes of what we want to design," he said. "So, we can review the ideas together and adjust the design based on community direction before construction begins."

In addition to the lab space in the Engineering Building, the EDM Lab is mobile. Thanks to support from the Canada Foundation for Innovation's John R. Evans Leadership Fund, the lab has a state-of-the-art unit that can travel to remote communities to engage in the education and design process.

The mobile trailer allows researchers with the EDM Lab to engage people where they're most comfortable. The trailer is Starlink internet enabled, contains touchscreen tablets for use in the community, and has self-contained data storage.

A recent use of the trailer involved taking it to Regina to use in the Indigenous Saskatchewan Women's Association water movement event to engage and educate about changing flow regimes of the Saskatchewan River, and water sovereignty in the Saskatchewan River Delta.

Both on the USask campus and out in the community, the EDM Laboratory is equipped to participate with communities as partners in all stages of the design process, including processes that already exist outside the university.

"I'm grateful for our whole campus community and their openness for trying something like this," Bradford said. "I really extend my thanks to fine arts, to humanities, to social science disciplines, as well as engineers for being open-minded and listening to other perspectives. It's great that we're able to have this kind of a partnership here at the University of Saskatchewan."