Carol Way Cisco, Allied ASID - LEED + WELL AP

                        Founder of Designing for Veterans

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"Our therapeutic approach is to design and build an environment that will aid in their recovery and not be a constant reminder of their disability. We build environments that heal.”   

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​With over thirty years in professional interior design Ms Cisco has been utilizing her skills to improve the human condition on an international level.  She has done extensive work in the nonprofit sector designing everything from the largest drug rehab facility in the US to the international headquarters for world literacy to a human rights embassy in Belgium. This work along with her many other humanitarian projects has been 100% volunteer.  

Coupled with her background studies in the modern science of mental health and personally counseling over two-thousand hours she uses this experience to design environments that enhance the quality of life.

Ms Cisco started Designing for Veterans, Inc in 2010 as a nonprofit  design  firm  to serve     severely  disabled  veterans  returning from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars as a way to salvage their lives after having sacrificed so much to keep our country secure and free. The firm  provides architectural, engineering, interior design and landscaping services, furnishings and construction at no cost to the veteran or their family. As an evidence-based design research program Ms Cisco has developed a “therapeutic design process” providing environments that will aid in the veterans' healing and recovery. 

While Carol has received many awards throughout her career, the most important of these come  from her work in Designing  for Veterans. Recently, she  won  the ASID Design   Excellence Award Residential - Universal Design for Mission Recovery;  the ASID Foundation, Irene Winifred Eno Grant for her academic research into the Impact of  Interior Design on  Disabled Veterans and the ASID IL Design Visionary Award.  Further recognition came when she received the International Interior Design Associations’ Recognizing Exemplary Design (RED) in the category of  Healthcare - Residential - Assisted Living also for the Mission Recovery Project.

Mission Possible and Mission Recovery have received media attention from  local TV stations. Mission Possible, for Army Sgt Cameron Crouch has been featured on CBS 2 “Your Chicago with Rob and Kate”.  You’ll find Designing for Veterans work  published in Contract and Interiors Chicago magazines and the  ASID ICON – Design for Life.

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Ms Cisco is a graduate of  The Illinois Institute of Art - Chicago with a BFA in Interior Design. ​In addition to her work with Designing for Veterans she has worked in professional design studios in Chicago, Los Angeles and Aspen.  She recently received acknowledgement from Colorado Homes & Lifestyles Magazine for her interior design work as the  Colorado Home of the Year and national ASID Focus Award for Health & Wellness Design.

Biography