Interior Architecture Faculty Reports

Anna Marshall-Baker and Tommy Lambeth will moderate a roundtable discussion, entitled "Interior Architecture Part 2," at the South Region Interior Design Educators Council conference at Auburn University in October.

Patrick Lee Lucas received news of his promotion to Associate Professor with tenure effective 1 August 2008. Congratulations all around!

Novem Mason moved out of his office – and that was no small feat! – with several decades of accumulated paperwork, student projects, and books, books, books! Novem graciously donated a career’s worth of books to the IARc library. As for the rest of the material, he made good use of several recycling carts and gave fellow faculty members valuable documents, some of which made us nostalgic for the days of ditto masters. Novem retired in May 2008 from IARC amidst a big student celebration, complete with an autographed drawing bench and delicious cake. Dean Laura Sims recognized Novem with a special award on the occasion of his retirement. A former department chair, Novem has been involved in all aspects of the IARc program and will be greatly missed for his wit and charm, not to mention his skill for making students think on their feet.

A record number of twenty-three fifth year students successfully pursued and completed their senior thesis projects under the direction of Suzanne Cabrera, Robert Michel Charest, and Patrick Lee Lucas. Projects spanned the breadth of design opportunities, including office retrofits, conference center, art galleries, student housing, retail spaces, churches, restaurants, an interactive playground space, a mobile food preparation station, and the redesign of the Weatherspoon Art Museum shop. The students demonstrated that good design can be everywhere, even under the pressure of an eight week summer session.

Urban studio moves forward with $505,000 in grants for my sisters' house. After an exploration studio (iar 302) in the spring semester 2008, Robert Michel Charest worked with a cadre of students over the summer to formalize drawings and specs. As of this [i]news, permits, licenses and design approvals are underway. As planned, the design-build will take place over the next three semesters in partnership with Guilford Technical Community College and several departments in the UNCG School of Human Environmental Sciences. With the goal of a "double-fast-track" build, part of the construction will take place on site and part in an off-site shop. A ceremonial ground breaking is scheduled for mid-September and my sisters' house should be ready for occupation in late 2009. Watch the [i]news for further developments.

Anna Marshall-Baker (faculty) serves as Coordinator for UNCG’s Center for Sustainability, helping to lead Focus the Nation, an initiative to study the impacts of global warming on the United States.

Suzanne Buchanan (faculty), along with several first and second year students, helped single teenage mothers to visualize their lives through active journaling and drawing in a special course/outreach during the Spring Semester 2008. “Advocacy through Design” represents one of the many ways that IARc finds its way into the community in providing service and in recognizing that we all are fundamentally connected through design.

Interior Architecture Student Reports

bringing new ideas to community service
IIDA Campus Center (the IIDA student chapter) will team with the Department of Consumer, Apparel, and Retail Studies to redesign the Greensboro Salvation Army store. Students will analyze existing retail and merchandising strategies, space use, store image, users, and safety issues to begin the project. This IIDA-sponsored project will be highlighted by a 12 hour charrette on Friday, October 24, 7pm - 7am. The Greensboro Salvation Army, led by Major Paul Egan, has partnered with Ivan Cutler, former IARC Advisory Board member and a strategic marketing specialist, to upgrade the existing store and to develop a new boutique type of store for north Greensboro.

Weaving new uses for old mills
Retail Retold students recently began a retail design project located at Revolution Mill in Greensboro. Check out students’ first reactions to the site and observations of the tour of the facility by Lynn Cowan, Christine Chapman (MS 2007) and Catherine Carter (BS 2007) on the class blog: retailretoldstudio.blogspot.com...

...De-Specialized Workspace students explore new ways of "working" by deconstructing the traditional office...the site: Highpoint’s Highland Mill (a 100, 000 sq. ft building now the home of Cisco Brothers Furniture showroom)...
...and in other third and fourth year (vertical) studios...students pursue a variety of projects: lustrous LED lighting design competition, shopping center and retail spaces in Hong Kong, and furniture design and product design.

Not forgetting their roles as conscientious designers, Amanda Wilson (fifth year), Caitlin Cunningham (fifth year), Debbie Nestvogel (fourth year), and Janel Graupensperger (fourth year) took the LEED certification exam this past summer and are now all LEED Accredited Professionals.

Historic preservation masters students celebrated a significant birthday – for the Korner’s Folly privy. Following the smell of piquant barbecue, more than fifty former students and friends to the privy headed to Kernersville for a down-home gathering to honor the efforts of many in stabilizing and re-roofing this important slice of North Carolina history. Jo Ramsay Leimenstoll, leading the revitalization efforts, has placed the privy as a memorable aspect to each summer field school (IAR/HIS555) since 2001.

Allison Conley (third year student), while studying abroad in France in the Spring Semester 2008, received a grant from Middlebury College to investigate sustainability practices in Paris as a point of comparison with those in the United States.

With funding from the Marion Stedman Covington Foundation, IARC joined forces in Spring Semester 2008 with Preservation North Carolina to fashion a series of digital resources on PNC’s website related to preservation issues and opportunities facing North Carolina.  Rachel Miller (MS 2008) served as the first of several graduate assistants in the historic preservation concentration of our graduate program who will assist with this important project.  Kate Zylstra (second year graduate student) continued in the position in summer 2008.

In Spring Semester 2008, seven fourth and fifth year students took to the world of work under the guidance of mentors in various Triad-area businesses and organizations.  We thank these employers for helping students to innovate as they make the transition from IARC to the world of work.
Michelle Bottenus                        Workplace Strategies
Kylene Costa                                One Design Center
McKenzie Gates                        Pixxelweave
Erin Hicks                                    Warren Architecture
Jessica Krasuski                        Habitat for Humanity
Aralynn McVey                        Habitat for Humanity/Americorp
Meaghan Riordan                        Brayton International

Students throughout the program shared their work through blogs in 2008 (an initiative started by Suzanne Buchanan…and a topic on which she and Tommy Lambeth presented at the March 2008 meeting of the National Council on the Beginning Design Student Conference in Atlanta).  The blogs continue a long tradition of utilizing digital media to bring iarc to the world, including our ever-changing web site.  See the addresses on the front page of our site. 

In March 2004, Bettye Russell (IARc Advisory Board) led fourth year students through several Atlanta design firms earlier this month as her commitment and Herman-Miller’s practice to connect students and professionals into sustaining relationships.  By diversifying our view beyond the academy, Bettye reminds us that these collaborations and opportunities for students to see the world build into effective partnerships in life. 

IARC students adopted a stream in Spring Semester 2008 in Peabody Park on UNCG’s campus as a place to demonstrate our commitment to keeping one part of the natural environment clear of debris. 

In the Spring Semester 2008, several studios engaged in hypothetical projects based on real world sites….and in the case of two projects with our partner, the YWCA of Greensboro….”real world” projects to benefit the Triad:  a new facility/community center for the Center for New North Carolinians (Suzanne Buchanan + Tommy Lambeth, faculty); urban studio o2 : my sisters' house, a home for single teenage mothers (Robert Michel Charest + Novem Mason, faculty); renovation of the Benjamin Branch Library (Patrick Lee Lucas, faculty); North Carolina Sustainable Building Design Competition (Robert Michel Charest, faculty); Greensboro Historical Museum Study + Analysis (Jo Ramsay Leimenstoll, faculty) and “Advocacy Through Design,” an eight-week course (Suzanne Buchanan, faculty; assisted by first and second year student volteers) to introduce teenage mothers to principles of drawing and graphic design, opportunities for careers in design, and ways in which they can use their talents to create an advocacy campaign.

Urban studio 01 received the "Most Effective Housing Collaboration" Award for its 909 Dillard Street Project during the Greensboro Housing Coalition's  "Housing Summit", a yearly event, which took place on 17 January. The project will be featured in the upcoming March issue of Dwell magazine.

Tiffany Stewart and Amanda Gordon have both won honors in the 2008 Brass Ring Awards Competition. The Brass Ring Awards are hosted annually by the Department of Art and Design at Oklahoma Christian University. The competition is designed to motivate and reward students for excellence in art and design. This year marks the 23rd year for the Brass Awards, which attracted 949 entries in 2008 from 22 universities and 17 high schools. Tiffany Stewart won 1st place in the category of custom design in conjunction with an Award of Merit-Best of Show. Amanda Gordon received the 2nd place award in custom design.

April Lewis, a  fourth year student, was notified by Interior Design Magazine and Electrolux Icon  that she won second place in an international design competition for her entry in the “Live-in-Room” Design Competition. She was competing with some of the largest and most internationally renowned design firms. The prize for second place in the competition is $25,000 worth of high end Electrolux kitchen appliances. You can view her award winning work via http://kitchenappliances.electroluxusa.com/ , then click on design competition winners announced.

Julie Barghout , a fifth year interior architecture student is the recipient of the form.Z Joint Study Program Award of Distinction for Interior Design. Her project, "a place to see and be seen" is the design of a workplace environment for Mullen Advertising Agency in downtown Winston-Salem. The project was completed in Fall 2006 under the direction of studio instructor Tina Sarawgi. Julie was flown in by auto.des.sys to receive her award at a dinner ceremony in the Association for Computer-aided Design in Interior Architecture (ACADIA) Conference on October 4-7, 2007, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.

Edgar Cabrera is currently a 4th year Interior Architecture student and is the recipient of the IIDA Carolinas Chapter Scholarship.

Adrian Boggs, another 4th year IARc student, received the IFDA Ruth Clark Scholarship as well as the Construction Professionals Network Scholarship through the Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro.