By Sarah Wise, Intern at Turn Key Interiors
I’ve wanted to be an interior designer since I was about 12 years old. Growing up, I became obsessed with watching HGTV and tearing apart design magazines, and I thought I knew pretty much everything there was to know about being an interior designer. If I had a good eye for design, how much harder could it be? I’d also dreamed of going to Virginia Tech pretty much since birth, so there wasn’t really any other option in my mind. When I found out that Virginia Tech’s Interior Design program was in the top 10 in the nation, I knew that I was meant to be there, and today that’s exactly where I am.
As the first day of studio neared, I thought I had an idea of how it would be: some drawing, maybe some color theory or studying famous designers. I was totally unaware of what design school would actually be like. Our first assignment had no further instructions than to “create order using points.” I was confused beyond belief and scared to death of doing something stupid or getting it completely wrong. It took me almost my entire first year to realize that doing things differently from everyone else was proof of a unique, creative mind and would almost always be praised rather than criticized. During that first year, we didn’t do much actual design, it was more of a thought-conditioning process to get us to think out of the box. Ironically, we made A LOT of boxes! I learned how to work with wood, wire, plastic, concrete, plaster, and I even made a project out of Jell-O (which proved extremely difficult in my dorm’s mini fridge and using this upside-down pyramid form). After that foundation year, my views on design and the way I looked at the world had changed completely.
This past year was much more focused on interior design and made my dream to become a designer even stronger. Our first official project was to design a small sporting apparel store in an urban setting. I immediately had a vision for an energetic retail environment with an industrial urban feel from exposed brick, metal, and concrete. I came up with a zig-zag form that I used in several places, which abstractly mimicked the way a runner would move through a city, dodging pedestrians and possibly jumping over objects in his path. I also used a city grid pattern as the base for the shoe display wall, which was probably my favorite aspect of the design. By the end of the project I was so sick of it, but I still loved it and was pretty proud of what I’d accomplished. Apparently our studio sponsor liked it too, because they chose it as the winning design!
Spring semester of this year, we worked on two office interiors. The first was for an advertising agency in Brooklyn, NY, who wanted a playful office environment. My design was based on a stair-step concept. The three main partners’ offices were three stepped boxes, and the associates’ workspace was a single long table that had 3 different levels to accommodate for whether people preferred to work at table height, bar height, or in between.
The challenge of the second office design was that we had to use systems furniture pieces to create a new desk system that had not been done before, and then implement it in the office design. I loved designing this office, especially the curve-form conference area that hugs the entrance and invites clients into the space, as well as separate the serious workspaces from the more casual environments of the café and collaborative areas.
Last summer, after my first year in school, I interned here at Turn Key, and had the most amazing experience, getting to see both the design side and the business side of the job. I got to research furniture and fabrics for different projects, place orders for products, and sit in on client meetings. It was the best experience, at the exact right time, and I definitely think it gave me an advantage going into my first real year of Interior Design. It’s given me a great experience with residential design, which not many of my classmates have had.
I had such a blast last summer that I’m back again part-time this summer, and I’m so excited to be back! Whether it’s filing fabric samples, designing graphics or researching products, every day at Turn Key has something new and exciting!
Through my experiences at Turn Key and in design school, I’ve come to realize that interior design is SO MUCH more than the HGTV portrayal of painting and pillow-fluffing. It not only takes an eye for style, but a knowledge of building systems, material properties, environmental factors, and human tendencies and interactions just to name a few!
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