Earlier this month, ASID NY Metro Chapter partnered with the Decoration and Design Building for this year's student challenge, creating a full day of events with two separate student challenges, a variety of showroom tours, design industry speakers, and a keynote panel sponsored by Editor at Large. This combined effort allowed hosts and sponsors to embrace future leaders of the interior design industry.
Showrooms within the DDB opened their doors for the Individual Challenge where students created a design concept and rendering, “Celebrating the Best of the D&D Building” to fit inside an existing display window in the building’s lobby. Students were given window dimensions, a list of participating showrooms, and were required to create a unique vision using available merchandise.
Submitted boards were reviewed and students were interviewed to discuss their concept before the judges Mariette Himes Gomez, ASID and Charles E. Pavarini III., Allied ASID. The judges chose Anastasia Berestova from the New York Institute of Technology. Her winning design will come to life and be on display for the month of March in the lobby of the D&D building. The individual challenge was an excellent opportunity for students to become acquainted with a variety of showrooms, form relationships with staff, and create a successful, dynamic design within very tight parameters.
The Student Group Challenge created some friendly competition amongst New York Metro Interior Design Schools when teams of five students were set to the task of creating a functional as well as visually appealing vignette by pulling pieces from a pool of pre-selected furniture within a one-hour time limit.
Out of the four teams competing in the challenge, the Art Institute (AI) of New York was crowned the winner by the panel of judges: Harry Daniell, Editor at Large, Jacqueline Hosford, ASID, Benjamin Huntington, ASID, and Julia Noran of Editor at Large. The students instrumental in creating the winning vignette were Erin Conley, Carlos Coronado, Jessica Williams, Maritz Hevia, and Kristine Boyd.* AI’s design concept was to, “Create a cohesive space while allowing the two areas to work separately. We were given neutral colors to start with and took a Southwestern inspired approach incorporating warm oranges and natural materials.”
Supporting showrooms Artistic Frame, Anichini, Jerry Pair, Leron, Niedermaier, Romo, Schumacher, Stark Carpets, and Vaughan provided accessories and additional items to make this a fun, eclectic challenge.
The winners received the professional 2012 version of AutoCAD donated by Autodesk. Lynda.com provided a one-month premium subscription offering a vast array of online tutorial support and Herman Miller contributed a DVD copy of Eames the Architect and the Painter. Students also received goodie bags with tools to help them transition from student life into real world design.
*The winning vignette is featured in the photos above. Photos by Who We Are Studios.
