Two Interior Design Students Awarded Donghia Senior Scholarships

Two interior design students in the School of Architecture at The University of Texas at Austin have each been awarded a $30,000 Angelo Donghia Senior Scholarships in Interior Design, the largest interior design scholarships in the United States.

Undergraduates Ashley Thompson and Jessica Yong competed against 77 applicants from eight schools. To be eligible, students in their junior year must submit either a residential or commercial project they have designed. The judges consist of top New York City interior designers.

Both students submitted projects that were completed as part of a design studio taught by Assistant Professor Tamie Glass. The class project was to design a fashion design showroom for the CARR Collection, to be located in Texas.

The late Zack Carr was a graduate of the Interior Design Program at UT Austin and his brother George graduated with honors in business administration.

Zack, best known within the fashion industry for working as head designer at Calvin Klein for three decades before his untimely death in 2002, left his photos, memorabilia, and sketches to actor and filmmaker George, who launched the CARR Collection.

Thompson interned this summer at Kendall/Heaton Associates of Houston, an architectural design and planning firm with a focus on combining collaborative efforts with some of the world's premier design firms. Yong interned with Planning Design Research in Houston, a leading firm in corporate commercial interior design. During the fall 2013 semester, both Thompson and Yong are studying design in Europe.

Since 2003, nine University of Texas at Austin students have been awarded a total of $270,000 from the foundation.

The Angelo Donghia Foundation's Scholarship Program provides assistance for the advancement of education in the field of interior design. Since its inception in 2002, the program has awarded almost $10 million to interior design education.

Angelo Donghia was an American interior designer whose contemporary design innovations include unusual upholstery treatments, shiny lacquered walls, and unusual combinations of fabric textures and patterns. He became widely popular through shrewd marketing arrangements for products carrying his name and was the first U.S. designer to endorse a line of interior products. His DONGHIA STUDIO showrooms are international and exist in the finer marketplaces today, with approximately 70 showrooms in the U.S. alone.