Autodesk and the American Institute of Architecture Students (AIAS) recently announced the People's Choice and Jury selections for the 2010 Student Sustainable Design Challenge.
In recent years, temporary shelters for disaster-stricken and otherwise depressed communities have become a necessary focus area for the architectural profession. Temporary housing and community structures such as makeshift medical facilities have been built by numerous organizations and individuals along the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina, in tsunami-affected areas of Thailand, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and elsewhere during the past several years.
The Autodesk and AIAS design contest wanted to draw attention to these efforts by challenging design students in North America and other regions to develop sturdy, eco-friendly, single-room schools that could be easily constructed in Port-au-Prince with minimal construction experience and locally and inexpensively available materials.
Ms. Willey's and Mr. Siegel's school structures were selected as the most original and most cleverly designed and described entries by peers and a panel of judges, respectively. Entrants were required to abide by a number of different design criteria and use Autodesk's Revit® Architecture software and Ecotect® Analysis software when creating their design concepts.
|
As part of its continuing attempt to shed light upon the problem of counterfeits and knock-offs in the design industry, M2L, a licensed and authorized U.S. importer of modern design products from Europe, recently announced its second annual Genuine Design Competition scholarship award winners.
The first place scholarship of $3,500 was awarded to Katherine Dabkowski, an interior design student at Arizona State University. Her entry explored the intellectual property rights and moral and legal issues associated with knockoffs, counterfeit designs, illegal reproductions, and deceptive advertising. You can view Ms. Dabkowski's video entry here.
A second place prize of $2,500 was awarded to Sarah Muchow, an interior design major at the New York School of Interior Design. Third and fourth place prizes were awarded to Marita Montes of the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York and Stuart Fingerhut of Los Angeles'Art Center College of Design, respectively.
M2L's design competition was developed in conjunction with the New York Eleven consortium of design schools, with judging by a panel of industry representatives that included Interior Design Magazine's web editor Laurel Petriello. The design competition awarded scholarship prizes to those students who created the most impactful public service announcement type videos about the harmful effects that product knockoffs have upon the design industry.
|
Many of the familiar architecture and design names are in the 2010 list, including the Boston Architectural College, the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, the Pratt Institute, the Rhode Island School of Design, and the California Institute of the Arts.
Perhaps you're considering a career in interior design? A good way to start is to research accredited interior design schools using the highly reliable Council for Interior Design Accreditation pages. Formerly known as FIDER (Foundation for Interior Design Education Research), the council is the gold standard for the evaluation of interior design educational programs. For 35 years, this non-profit organization has promoted quality standards for interior design educational programs. Once accredited, programs must continue to meet/exceed and uphold standards in order to maintain accreditation.
The entire site http://www.accredit-id.org/ is very user friendly, providing information for prospective students, parents, educators and interior design professionals.
Another reliable and informative resource is the College Board http://www.collegeboard.com, where you can search majors. For example, you can search "interior design" or "interior architecture" in order to see a brief description of the major/career, and then search listings of schools that offer such majors. A very handy tool!
|
 Thinking about a career as an interior designer?
It’s important for prospective students to understand which colleges offer reputable and accredited interior design programs and what one can expect from a career as an interior designer.
There are literally hundreds of colleges and universities that offer interior design programs both here in the States and elsewhere around the world. Some offer two- or four-year degree programs while others offer certificate programs.
The Council for Interior Design Accreditation (CIDA) maintains a list of accredited programs on its website. The list is updated twice each year and the current list always supercedes all previously published lists. The Council also maintains a page which documents each school's accreditation history with CIDA.
CIDA is a good resource if you're contemplating pursuit of an interior design degree.
Another good resource is U.S. News & World Report's annual 'America's Best Colleges' report. Amherst College was ranked as 2009's best Liberal Arts college in America (and it has an interior design program). Click here to check out all of their 2009 college rankings and reviews. Note: in order to view all data, you'll need to purchase their premium online edition, but the site is still very useful for performing a variety of college searches.
Here are some good places to start in terms of considering whether a career as an interior designer is even right for you:
|