Design Associate Professor Tamie Glass has been awarded the 2026 Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA) Achievement Award for her book People and Spaces: Experience, Ethics, and Intent (Routledge, 2025), which she co-edited with Lindsay T. Graham. The EDRA Achievement Award is given to an individual, or to a group of people, in recognition of a significant contribution made to the field of environmental design research.
Glass is a designer, author and educator whose work centers on the relationship between people and the environments they inhabit. Drawing on environmental psychology and psychosocial design, she develops frameworks and methods that help designers and non-designers understand how spaces influence behavior, experience and meaning to promote overall health and wellbeing. Her work moves between practice, writing and teaching, with each informing the others.
People and Spaces: Experience, Ethics, and Intent examines the dynamic relationship between built environments and human behavior in today's rapidly evolving world. Co-edited by a designer and a psychologist, the interdisciplinary collection reveals how the spaces we inhabit shape and reflect our self-expression, social structures and cultural values. Drawing on diverse perspectives, case studies and innovative research, People and Spaces equips readers from any discipline with practical human-centric knowledge to enhance environments in meaningful ways. The blend of essays and expert insights demonstrates the value of intentional approaches to design and research and offers actionable guidance for creating supportive and sustainable environments.
Glass also received the 2025 Joel Polsky Prize from the American Society of Interior Designers Foundation.
Her previous book, Prompt: Socially Engaging Objects and Environments (Birkhäuser, 2018), was awarded the Interior Design Educators Council's book of the year for 2020.