IIDA NeoCon Student Design Charrette

The IIDA Student Design Competition is a nationwide interior design competition in Chicago. Students are nominated by their professors and put into teams of students from all across the nation. On Tuesday, we all met for the first time and participated in an intense design charrette. We had 6 hours to develop a design solution that included a concept, plans, perspective, materials and inspiration photos. All of this had to be done by hand, as technology was not allowed.

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Our design prompt was a wide corridor in a higher education facility and they wanted it to be a student lounge. We had to use Benjamin Moore and Wolf-Gordan/Wallcoverings Association products, while focusing on creating different areas for different profile types. After the 6 hours of running around the Mart and designing within our teams, we had 5 minutes total to present to a jury. My team ended up going with a concept of Academic Sustainability. We focused on disbursing welcoming areas for every type of student and incorporated lots of natural materials and biophilic elements. We also took sustainability in a different route, envisioning our space to be a place where students and alumni can create mentor relationships. We wanted to encourage the cycle of student-graduate-professional-mentor, creating a stronger connection to the community.