Two Interior Design Students Are Donghia Award Finalists

Third-year Interior Design students, Gisella Allen and Stephanie Betesh, have been selected as finalists for the prestigious Donghia Foundation Senior Scholarship Award. Winners receive a scholarship of $30,000. Gisella Allen's project "Flourish", is an office space developed for the new Seaholm Development in Austin, Texas, based on the idea of co-working. Co-working, a style of work that incorporates independent activities in a shared and collaborative work environment, is conducive to the idea of movement. Promoting movement has been implemented into this office space through the idea of a work-life cycle in which members are encouraged to work uninterrupted for 90 minutes and then take a break to relax, renew, and replenish."

Stephanie Betesh writes of her concept: "The design of LIKEMINDED focuses on exploring how to create a comfortable work environment where workers can concentrate on individual tasks while still interacting with and being surrounded by coworkers. A design element revolves around the idea of unexpected interactions; where people do not only collaborate with their core team, but they bump into somebody from somewhere else and it triggers some idea that they wouldn't have come up with before. The name refers to the idea that like-minded individuals who want to integrate work and life can come together in this space. The design emphasizes the balance between co-creation with other workers and quiet moments of reflection."