Interior design is on display

The+senior+Interior+Design+majors+who+are+displaying+their+final+projects+in+the+exhibition.+

Contributed photo

The senior Interior Design majors who are displaying their final projects in the exhibition.

Rachel Sobina, Staff writer

The Interior Architect and Design Senior project is an exhibition of the final projects that wraps up all the educational and specialized skills students have learned in their four years at Mercyhurst University.
“Each student spends 30 weeks dedicated to this project, researching and developing his or her own personal thesis.
“Although we all help each other with critiquing, design ideas, and personal thoughts, each project is the student’s individual work,” Roxanne Oglesby said.
This has been an annual event since 1986, even though displaying the work is a bit newer.
The showcase has only been around since 1997.
There are a total of 12 seniors this year, which is a large number.
“With the help of our new professor Keyman Asefi and the head of the department, Kathy Weidenboerner, this year’s show will be a lot different and more unique than the past years” Oglesby said.
Oglesby also explained some of the finer details about how the projects were completed.
“We have been utilizing five different computer programs to make our projects come to life.
We display our 30 weeks of research, schematics, floor plans, sections and renderings on six boards 39 by 29 inches each.
Late nights for months are almost an expectation of us in order to finish our projects in time.”
The seniors have spent an incredible amount of time working for this show, the ending of it is a celebration of their accomplishments and the wrap-up of their education.
Family, friends, professors and employers are all invited to the exhibition.
The seniors spend the first semester researching issues surrounding a specific population of people, locations, construction and then create a design thesis on how to solve these issues.
The second semester is researching buildings and floor plans, and then taking an empty building shell and turning it into a well-thought out and research-planned design.
They end the semester by presenting to local architects and designers. They receive feedback on their floor plan designs and discuss how they are solving their design issues.
The last semester is dedicated to making changes to their floor plan. From there, they create the actual building.
They build every wall, floor, door, window, architecture detail and furniture in SketchUp and bring it into a rendering program called Lumion.
The renderings are the images that will be on display at the show and will depict the full designs.
“We end by creating their presentation boards in Photoshop and send them to the printers in time for the show,” Oglesby said.
Please come and show your support for some of our Mercyhurst Students.
The work will be displayed in the Cummings Art Gallery until Sunday, May 22.