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Goucher College’s LEED-certified Athenaeum
The first time I went to college my choice was Goucher, located in Towson, Maryland. I was a theater major. Since then, I’ve gone back to school (The College for Creative Studies) to earn a degree in Interior Design. But I never forgot my first Alma Mater. I’ve been a faithful class agent (begging for money from classmates) since graduation. And I’m still close friends with many of my Goucher buddies.
I met last week with Nancy Turner, the Director of Development and Alumnae Affairs, and was thrilled to hear first-hand about Goucher’s new library and cultural center – The Athenaeum. It’s a green building with a silver rating from LEEDs. Let’s take a little tour.
When I attended, Goucher was an all women’s college. We were fairly ticked when they started admitting men. But you have to roll with the times. I am no longer ticked, but enthused about their international approach to education. Every student must spend at least 3 weeks studying in another country. They’re the first college to dedicate themselves to the global village, so to speak.
The exterior is constructed from Butler stone, redwood and copper.
Part of the environmental design includes 2 grass-covered roofs. Grass acts as an insulator to keep heating costs low. The large windows are light sensitive and change throughout the day to make the best use of the natural energy.
The Forum is the central feature of the new Athenaeum. It’s modeled after the amphitheaters of Europe. The cool thing is that the character can change according to what happens to be oging on. The steps leading up from the stage can accommodate crowds of varying sizes.
There’s more!
Twiggy in Letters by Caroline Ross
Caroline Ross, a design student here in Michigan, created this for an assignment and I thought it was pretty cool. The assignment required students to create an image of a person using only typography and including a quote from the person in question.
I think she did an especially good job with the eyelashes. Caroline, what typeface did you use?
Do you remember Twiggy? She is now an actress, but in the 1960’s she was a super model known for being very thin – hence “Twiggy”.
Electrolux Design Lab Winners
Electrolux has announced the winners of this year’s Design Lab Competition. The challenge asked industrial design students from around the world to send in their home appliance designs for the next 90 years (Electrolux is celebrating their 90th anniversary).
Here are this year’s winning designs.
Grand Prize: Cocoon Meat & Fish Cooker
Cocoon is a conceptual cooker designed by Rickard Hederstierna from Lund Institute of Technology in Sweden. It uses radio frequency identification (RFID) signals to identify muscle cells in meat and fish dishes and suggests cooking times. The idea is to “use science to create food, thereby decreasing the burden on the planet by reducing the need for intensive fishing and farming.” The concept is to “grow” meat and fish from pre-packaged sachets, like making popcorn in a microwave. So you don’t actually catch the fish or raise the cow. Well, it looks cool, but I can’t stop thinking of Soylent Green.
Here are the other finalists.
Teleport Fridge
Beam me up, Scotty! Designed by Dulyawat Wongnawa, from Chulalongkorn University in Thailand, The Teleport Fridge simply takes your order for food and teleports it directly to you, nice and fresh. It reverses the process by taking the leftovers and transporting them to the recycling center. I need this right now.
Flying In The Rain
From China, student Penghao Shan, Zhejiang, from Sci-tech University, comes a device that uses flying balls to catch rain water, purifies it and delivers it to the drinker. The homing tray also reads fingerprints to determine what additives should be added to the water to ensure the drinker optimizes his or her health.
Moléculaire
This concept was a little difficult for my tiny brain to understand. It’s a 3D molecular food printer. Designer, Nico Kläber, from the KÃln International School of Design, Germany, was influenced by chefs who scientifically experiment with food and food to create fresh ideas. The Moléculaire simplifies the cooking process and acts as a computer numerical control (CNC) food printer. It autonomously prepares basic and otherwise difficult-to-create two and three dimensional parts of meals. It works with a layer-by-layer printing process using small particles from diverse ingredients. This provides simplicity, accuracy, repeatability and, of course, great tasting food! Anyone who can explain this to me get a Design Hole T shirt.
Read on! (more…)
Enter to Win Great Prizes in the Dorm Room Décor Contest
This is a reminder that it’s still not too late to enter my Dorm Room Décor Contest! You have until the end of the month to show off your decorating and budgeting skills. Can you decorate a room for $100 or less? You know you can.
The top three designs will win super-fantastic prizes from FLOR, Always Mod, Alluminare, and Benjamin Moore. For more details on prizes (some shown here), follow this link, and this one. Then start designing!
And, you don’t have to do one in “real life”. Email me and I’ll send you a floor plan (only 13′ x 10′) of a virtual room complete with photos.
Anyone who wants to enter should email me for the rules at designholeonline at gmail dot com. They’re very simple – I promise.
Need some ideas? Here are a few.
- Dress up a wall using decals. You can make your own easily.
- Buy stuff from the hardware store, like yard sticks and washers , to create your own mural.
- Drag something from over your Mom’s house and paint it.
- Buy a white sheet at K-Mart and tie dye it.
- Make some iron-on decals and design your own matching curtains and bedspread made from old sheets.
Have fun! But don’t forget to email me for the rules. There are lots of ideas there, too.
ShopScad
The University of Creative Careers (SCAD) has opened a shop, ShopSCAD, in Savannah, Georgia. The shop features the brilliant work of their students and other artists. Now, they’ve opened their doors to the wide world and are taking it online.
Their shop features jewelry, clothing and lots of other great stuff. Let’s take a peek at some of their home décor.
The Butler’s Flatware by artist Adam Smith is made from antique, solid sterling flatware, handmade bronze frames, and antique tintypes, presented in a wood case with magnets on back of pieces.
The Caracas Coffee Mug and bowl, by artist Vanessa Boulton, is ceramic. The mug depicts two girlfriends catching up on gossip on the front with a cute dog contemplating a cupcake on the back. The bowel features a girl on her bike. The designs are based on original illustrations by the artist.
Sweet and simple handthrown ceramic designs by artist Irene McCollam. Choose from bottle, egg, and stout. Available individually in Creme, Putty or Blue Glaze.
Pink Bumpy Teacups by artist Lisa Bradley. Cup 5 1/4″ diameter, 7″ wide including handle 4 1/2″ tall, saucer 7″ diameter.
The College for Creative Studies, the highly competitive art school here in Detroit, hosts its annual Spring Show that gets underway this Friday. Support student art by shopping at ShopSCAD and CCS.
I Am Not Afraid of Storms
An Interior Design Student’s Journey
“ I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning to sail my own ship” – Louisa May Alcott
First and foremost, I would like to say hello to all of the Design Hole enthusiasts who are faithfully appreciating the amazing site that Jennifer Mitchell has worked hard to develop. Before I launch into my contribution as a guest blogger, I feel it would only be appropriate to introduce myself. My name is Kara Samuels. I am currently a senior at The College for Creative Studies, majoring in Interior Design.
Kara’s design for Leo Burnett
I love to write, and I am very appreciative of the opportunity to share my thoughts and experiences with you. The following entry is a basic overview of my sentiments on my time spent as a design student at CCS. Hopefully, it will be inspirational, but I’m willing to settle for entertaining or even “pretty cool”. So here it goes:
At the age of 20, both impatient and naïve, I began my career as an official College for Creative Studies student. At the time, I knew that I had always had a knack for artistic and expressive endeavors and had definitely come to the right place. However, despite my elation over my acceptance, I had concerns regarding my own immature lack of passion and direction. Who was I? Who and what did I want to be? Would I make any money? Each one of these questions raced tirelessly through my mind day after day.
Kara’s entry in the Giordes Knot rug competition
Changing a major in mid-stream
In October of 2004 I had an epiphany that changed my goals,my way of thinking and my sense of purpose. The root of this burst of intuition was my budding interest in interior design. Notwithstanding the fact that pursuing this as a major would enable me to find a well-paying job, interior design spoke to my personal and inherent desire to be creative.
I was excited to realize that my thoughts, my visions and my analyses could serve as a mold for three-dimensional spaces – spaces that could be viewed from the outside and inhabited on the inside. The mundane tedium of sketching the same bowl of oranges and haphazardly arranged still-lifes would be happily replaced with realistic and intricate puzzles. Each puzzle would require unique insight and original solutions that would be refreshingly distinct and equally challenging.
To my utter dismay I discovered that changing my major would require sacrificing four and a half additional years of my life to education. In all honesty, I was devastated. I vividly remember telling myself, “This is ABSURD!! Do you know what this means? I’ll be TWENTY FIVE by the time I graduate! I’ll be ancient!!”
Thankfully, after many hours of intense thought and brooding, I decided to override my apprehensions and resign myself to a more productive mantra,“Four years are going to pass no matter what I choose to do with my time.”
Kara’s design for the Michigan Central Train Station
Congratulations to Kasia Lys
Kasia Lys, a senior at one of the best design schools in the country, The College for Creative Studies, has been named a winner in this year’s Angelo Donghia Foundation Student Scholarship Program in Interior Design. The scholarship is awarded to rising college seniors in a bachelor’s degree program in interior design. Kasia will receive a $30,000 scholarship to be applied to tuition, board, maintenance and books.
Kasia is one of 16 students who won the award. Winners were chosen by a panel of designers and journalists. The foundation, named for the late Angelo Donghia, is a nonprofit group that supports the advancement of education in interior design. The foundation also supports research into AIDS and its related diseases and treatments.
Let’s take a peek at 2 of her her award-winning projects.
They’re a bit hard to see these up close, but I think you still get a general idea of her talent, and of the high-caliber work that comes out of CCS – a school I’m (obviously) very proud to be associated with.
Kasia says, “I look at interior spaces like a painter looks at his/her blank canvases – ready to be painted with beautiful colors, textures and materials. Living in an industrial city I am exposed to a different field of Interior Design, which is Color and Materials. My future goal is to work in the automotive industry. I like to research materials and find creative ways to apply them into interior spaces.”
“Since I joined the CCS family I have grown a lot as an artist and designer. Last summer I had the opportunity to be a Color and Materials intern at USM Boats in Arlington, WA. During my stay I was responsible for material selection for two boats: Bayliner 285 and Maxum 3100, in which my proposed material options will be in production in 2009. USM is part of the Brunswick Group which is manufacturing not only Bayliner and Maxum, but also Meridian yachts and Trophy boats.”
Kasia also worked for Nike last year. Not too shabby, huh? And as if that weren’t enough, she’s also taking a minor in textiles. Why not leave her a note of congratulations in the comment section?
If you’re interested in finding out more about the Interior Design Department at CCS, go here.
Milk Crate Design by Naty Moskovich
Thanks to my friend, Dave for sending this my way. Naty Maskovich is a student product designer from the School of Industrial Design in Bezalel, Israel. He created this series of furniture and storage pieces from used milk crates. Pretty creative re-use.
Use this as inspiration to create some colorful accents in your own space.
These are a creative solution for someone on a student budget.
Naty Moskovich designed these in 2007.
I like this buffet table. I think it's my favorite.
His work isn’t available for sale because it was never produced. So you’ll have to use these as inspiration to create your own milk crate masterpieces. Buy the used crates from a dairy or grocery store. You’ll find legs at thrift shops and Home Depot. The rest is up to you.
White House Redux
The Storefront for Art and Architecture, in association with Control Group has announced the winners of this year’s White House Redux design competition. The mission statement was: What if the White House, the ultimate architectural symbol of political power, were to be designed today?
Participants were challenged to design a new residence for the world’s most powerful individual. The best ideas, designs, descriptions, images, and videos were selected. The top three winners, chosen by “some of the world’s most distinguished designers and critics” will have their designs featured in a month-long exhibition at Storefront for Art and Architecture in October 2008. All three winners will be flown to New York to collect their prizes at the opening party.
Revenge of the Lawn
This year’s winning entry was called Revenge of the Lawn, and was designed by J.P. Maruszczak, Ryan Manning (assistant), and Roger Connah. I can’t quite understand what they had in mind, except that it looks like something to do with killer bees. But it’s a lot of fun to look at and really creative.
Another winning entry by Jorge Rocha Antunes
If you’re a design student, or just love design, take a look at their site, which details all the entrants’ work. They’re a lot of fun.
Karastan Student Photography Contest
Karastan is a great supporter of design students. When I was at The College for Creative Studies they held an annual carpet design contest. They still do. Of course, a CCS student always won the Detroit area competition. (Let’s all sing the fight song now! – oh, there isn’t one – it’s an art school)!
Photography students haven’t been left out of the competition. Karastan just announced the winners of their first student photography competition featuring Karastan carpets in a residential, American and outdoor settings. A $3,500 cash prize was awarded for each winning photo, selected for its “originality, imagination and emotion.”
Sharon Rankin, a recent graduate of the Antonelli Institute in Erdenheim, Pennsylvania took the top prize in both the Residential and the American Setting categories. Her Residential photo was of a Karastan rug in a solarium setting, near an indoor swimming pool.(Sorry, this is the best photo I could find.)
For the American Setting category, Rankin incorporated a 1971 Chevelle SS and a 1968 Mustang. A chocolate Lab sits on the Karastan rug, which is the only item in color in the black-and-white shot.
Natasha Kertes, a recent graduate of the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale, was the winner in the Public Space category. She photographed a couple dancing on Karastan’s Tiana Glacier Blue rug, spread out over a sunny beach. The overall concept, says Kertes, is “the enigmatic narrative suggested by the figures, whose intimacy we seem to interrupt.”
I love Natasha’s photo. Sharon’s American shot is a good one – better than the residential photo. Mostly, I think it’s important for companies to support art students. So three cheers to Karastan.
1001 Things To Do With Cable Ties
In keeping with today’s theme of Interesting Things for Design Students, I thought everyone would enjoy reading this article from Materia’s site about a student exhibition involving thousands of cable ties. It looks like The Cotton Swab That Ate Munich. Enjoy!
“Something like a birds-nest of cable ties. That’s what the artwork of 1.3 million cable ties is, created by students of the Academy of Arts in Munich. The students transformed space into an amorphous landscape by weaving and lashing thousands and thousands of cable ties.”
Continue reading here.
Historic Design Styles: How To Get It Right
Let’s say you own an Arts and Crafts-era home and you want to restore it to its past glory. Or, perhaps you’re a designer who’s been asked to create an interior that evokes an era you know nothing about. Where do you go to gather historical information and resources? I’ve been this question by several readers. Here’s how I do it.
Bauhaus StyleGo to the Movies
First, try to get a feeling for the era you’ll be working with. A great way to do this is to rent movies that were either filmed during or take place in the era in question. For example, if you’re working on an Art Deco project, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers classics were made in the 1930’s when Art Deco was popular. Swing Time and Top Hat are over the top Art Deco. Likewise, if I were asked to recreate a Louis XV style, I would watch Dangerous Liaisons. I sometimes get so lost in the set design that I forget to watch the movie. They’re an excellent resource. Not sure when a movie was made? Internet Movie Database is great place to start.
Arts & CraftsMuseums are Fantastic – Ask the Experts
It may be hard to tear yourself away from the computer, but there’s nothing like seeing the real thing in the flesh, so to speak. Perhaps there’s a good art museum in your town, or nearby city. Most have a section devoted to textiles and furnishings. Go! Take photos. Write down the historical information.
Another hot tip, which I’ve tremendously helpful is to call or meet with the curator in charge of textiles, or whatever you’re researching. They’re a hotbed of information. After all, this is their passion. I find that curators are more than happy to talk about what they love. And they can lead you to other resources.
Beaux ArtsGo to the Library
It’s always a good idea for a designer to maintain a reference library. But if you’re not a professional, see what you can find at the library. It’s free! Of course, book stores are great because you’ll have your reference material always at hand. You can find a book on every style known to man at Amazon.
The photos in this post are from a fantastic book called, Decorative Style, by Kevin McCloud. It’s out of print, but you can find used copies on Amazon I believe. Here are some other books that I have in my library and find useful.
- The Elements of Style, by Stephen Calloway – an encyclopedia of styles from 1485 to the present.
- Illustrated Dictionary of Historic Architecture, by Cyril M. Harris – another valuable reference book.
- History of Interior Design and Furniture, by Robbie Blakemore – great photos here.
Scottish Highland Castle
Go Local
Sometimes you can find a wealth of information in your own backyard. Many towns have an historical society where you can do research. Or, just go for a walk. Take photos of other houses. This is a good thing to do if you’re restoring the exterior of your home.
French ProvincialFinal Thoughts
I guess I shouldn’t leave the internet out of this. Of course, if you didn’t know about the internet as a resource you wouldn’t be reading this. I’ll just say that there are bloggers who write about every topic known to man. Find one that focuses on history (as opposed to interiors) and ask them for help.
If you have a resource, or some tips of your own, please add to the conversation. Let us all know what your favorite style is.