designates the top graduating architecture and interior design students in the US and Canada each year. 91²Ö¿â's College of Architecture and Environmental Design's Interior Design students Katie Gagle and Emma Weaver were named 2023 Metropolis Future100. They join a distinguished cohort of seven 91²Ö¿â Interior Design students selected to the Metropolis Future100 in the past 3 years.
Katie Gagle - Fourth Year | Interior Design
"Katie is a truly exceptional interior design student. I know her well, having had the pleasure of teaching her in design theory seminar and studio, and critiquing her work during end-of-semester reviews. Katie combines a precise and imaginative intelligence with a ferocious work ethic. Her studio projects are consistently excellent: always deeply-researched, brave in their ethical commitments, rich with iterative explorations, expressive in spatial and volumetric organization, and then sensitively drawn, rendered, analyzed and documented." - Ronn M. Daniel, M.Arch, IDEC, NCIDQ, Interior Design Associate Professor
STORY OF WORKPLACE PROJECT
Due to COVID-19, we have begun to develop a variety of solutions for both remote and in-person work methods, diversifying atmospheres in the workplace. To understand the new workplace environment, storytelling around several critical employees will be introduced who both work from home and come into the office on a quarterly basis to identify work-life balance.
For LEGO, the challenge becomes enabling an environment to generate ideas and relationships with the work community no matter the location of staff. To overcome this dispersal, a space will be created to go "back to the basics" and simplify how office space function. To drive the design, play, cultivating boldness, and gathering will be used through collaboration opportunities, intentional spaces for idea sharing, and adding playfulness through color, line, and bold shapes.
Emma Weaver - Fourth Year | Interior Design
"Emma is an honors student in the program and has proven to be a take-charge person who can successfully develop plans and implement them. I feel confident that she has a bright future ahead of her in interior design practice. Emma is a very creative, enthusiastic, and dedicated learner and takes part fully in class discussions." - Tina Patel, Interior Design Assistant Professor
STORY OF WORKPLACE PROJECT
Since half of her college education has taken place during a pandemic, it has become very important to her to think about flexibility, comfort, and individuality in her designs.
During the story of workplace project, she was tasked with the problem of designing a new post-pandemic corporate office for the lifestyle brand Anthropologie. Along with designing the new corporate office, she also got to design the home offices of four employees with different work lifestyles.
For this project, she wanted to design an office that felt more like a home rather than a cubicle and encourage the employees to want to come into the office rather than stay at home. Inspired by the public spaces that people go to work outside the office, like coffee shops and parks, she decided to layout the space based on the park typology. Each floor was separated into neighborhoods that have the capability of connecting to remote employees if needed. Circulation was the most important space type and made up about 35% of the space. Off of the circulation paths, were smaller meeting spaces for collaboration and breakaway conversations. Connecting the two floors was a feature staircase with an archive level halfway up. She added it to the program because it was a unique space where people could browse through the history of Anthropologie and become inspired by the designs. Overall, this project taught her how the pandemic could affect interior spaces in a positive way and bring in a new era of workplace.