PARSONS SCHOOL OF DESIGN NAMES DESIGNER SHASHI CAAN AS
DIRECTOR OF INTERIOR DESIGN B.F.A. PROGRAM

(New York, NY – September 18, 2002) Parsons School of Design Dean, H. Randolph Swearer, has named designer Shashi Caan as the Director of the Interior Design B.F.A. Program at Parsons. The recent merger of the Interior Design program with the Department of Architecture represents a bold initiative at Parsons to take a lead role in establishing new curricular relationships between architecture, interior design, and lighting design. Working with faculty drawn from all three professional communities in New York City, the department is developing an unprecedented inter-disciplinary design education among schools of architecture.

Dean Swearer remarked, "We are very pleased to welcome Shashi Caan to Parsons. She is a designer of extraordinary talent and has accomplishments in architecture, industrial and interior design. She also has extensive experience having worked for such major New York firms as Swanke Hayden Connell Architects, and Gensler Associates, and most recently, as an Associate Partner at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill Architects. She is well-positioned to lead Parsons' Interior Design B.F.A. program."

Shashi Caan, born in India, near the city of Chandigarh, was educated in Scotland at the Edinburgh College of Art where she received a Bachelor of Arts Degree (with Honors) and Pratt Institute in New York where she obtained two master's degrees, the first in Industrial Design and the second in Architecture. This unique and multifaceted cultural and educational background explains in part Ms. Caan's individualistic point of view and her interest in the integration of design education.

Over the last fifteen years Ms. Caan has designed offices, facilities and products for a wide variety of clients. Her portfolio ranges from small retail facilities for financial services, large offices for multi-national corporate users, an airplane interior to a large sculptural installation for a major science museum. Her work is distinctive not only for its architectural form but also for its consistent attention to the sensory impact of the interiors created and the lighting, materials and colors selected.

Ms. Caan is intensely interested in the theoretical aspects of design and the profession. She has researched, taught, written and lectured on design and color both in the United States and abroad. In research for Pittsburgh Glass she focused on aspects of transparency, while as the curator for the show "Virtual Color" exhibition for the New York School of Interior Design and the accompanying catalogue she explored color in architecture. Other exhibits she has curated have dealt with 'green products'.

Some four years ago Ms. Caan launched a textile collection, titled 'Bridging' to be followed more recently by a new collection named 'Structures". In addition, she has designed new office furniture for ICF/Helikon, two collections of carpet designs for Lee's in collaboration with several other major designers, and a new brand image and color collection for an Italian manufacturer of finishes. This new and environmentally friendly product named 'Fractalis' was first shown at the international trade show 'Farbe' in Cologne in an innovative exhibit designed by Ms. Caan. At present she is completing the design of a new headquarters facility for the same company to be built in Modena, Italy.

Her work has been extensively reviewed and published. Her work can be seen in John Pile's Color in Interiors, (New York, McGrawHill), Aspects of Color, Helsinki, University of Design, or Product Design 6. Interviews, profiles and quotes have appeared in such magazines as Architectural Record, Interiors, Interior Design, Elle Décor, Contract Design and Office Insight. Her achievements are widely recognized and have been featured on television and in major national magazines, most recently in Dupont's Antron National Leadership Campaign.

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Parsons School of Design, a division of New School University, is one of the largest degree-granting colleges of art and design in the nation. Currently enrolled are about 2,400 undergraduate students, 500 graduate students, and 2,500 non-degree students from all 50 of the United States and from 60 countries. Parsons' main campuses are located in New York City's Greenwich Village and Midtown Manhattan. In addition, Parsons has affiliate schools in Paris, France; Kanazawa, Japan; Seoul, South Korea; and at Altos de Chavon in the Dominican Republic.

Undergraduate degrees are offered in Architectural Design, Communication Design, Design and Management, Design and Technology, Fashion Design, Fine Arts, Illustration, Interior Design, Photography, Product Design. Graduate degrees are granted in Architecture, Design and Technology, Lighting Design, Painting and Sculpture, Photography, and the History of Decorative Arts. For further information on Parsons, call 212-229-8910 or go to the Web site at www.parsons.edu