Ken Saginario

Ken Saginario is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the School of  Design at Florida State University, where he teaches design representation, visual communication, and foundational design studios. His interdisciplinary background spans interior design, architecture, and the highly specialized field of piano technology, bringing together design thinking, material craft, and systems-based problem solving.

Before joining the faculty full-time, Ken has been an adjunct instructor with the department for 7 years, while also building a professional practice in piano tuning, regulation, and rebuilding. Working with these mechanically and acoustically sophisticated instruments has profoundly shaped his approach to design research – reinforcing his interest in human interaction with material, space and objects, and the effects this has on memory and the quality of human experience.

His emerging research explores the intersection of craft, phenomenology, temporality, and interior environments. Building upon his master’s thesis, The Material at Hand: Constructs of Memory and Identity, his scholarship examines how spaces accumulate meaning through material transformation, use, repair, and time. His current research agenda investigates interiors as dynamic systems shaped by embodied experience, memory, acoustic performance, and material behavior, with the long-term goal of developing a broader theoretical framework that connects craft-based knowledge with contemporary interior design research.

Saginario holds a Master of Architecture from the University of South Florida, where his thesis received both the King Medal for Excellence in Architectural Research and the Thesis Award, and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Interior Design from the Art Institute of Tampa. Through both his teaching and research, he encourages students to view design not simply as the creation of objects or spaces, but as the careful calibration of relationships between people, materials, and the environments they inhabit.