Students Compete in Design Challenge
by Kay Rios | Photography by Warren Diggles
It’s one thing to form a design concept and quite another to follow it through to actual application. A recent challenge issued to Front Range Community College (FRCC) Interior Design students by Carpet Mill Outlet Stores and Karndean International provided the opportunity to do just that.
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Take 12 students, a shopping cart of materials and a chance for the glory of designing a new showroom floor for Carpet Mill and you have a recipe for fun reminiscent of TV’s home design shows so popular today.
The competition offered FRCC students the chance to work with materials and client specifications to create a display for one of Carpet Mill’s showrooms. Rod Hartley, Karndean International sales representative for Colorado, spearheaded the idea for the competition after a cooperative agreement between Carpet Mill and Karndean was formed. Karndean offers luxury vinyl flooring with the look of natural floors, available in a variety of patterns including wood, tile and stamped concrete.
Part of Carpet Mill’s agreement with Karndean included the dedication of 10,000 square feet of showroom space that would feature Karndean products in Carpet Mill’s Littleton showroom. And since practical application doesn’t often happen in an educational setting, Hartley says, “I thought it would be nice to get one of the local colleges involved and have students design the layout for the floor.”
Jim Jensen, Carpet Mill Outlet Stores vice president, warmed to the idea quickly. “Rod mentioned the possibility and I thought it was an excellent idea. We’ve used Karndean commercially but now we were going to be working with Karndean on a design center and the use of this flooring in our retail branches was new. There’s so much retail application and we really wanted some design ideas on how to make this an interesting and consumer-friendly environment. So, I thought, the more minds working on this project, the better.”
After getting approval from both companies, Hartley approached Nowell Vincent, an Interior Design Program instructor at FRCC and owner of Ancestor Design. Nowell had worked with Hartley previously and was acquainted with Karndean products. “He asked me if I’d be interested in doing a design floor and, after we talked a few times, we came up with the idea of doing a competition with my Graphic Communication class and it turned into an assignment.”
The two teamed up and Hartley did a product knowledge presentation for the class. Vincent gave students samples and explained how to work with them. “In the Karndean line, there are several series -- tile, mosaics and design strips – and there are different thicknesses so, when using two series, you have to make sure the thicknesses are the same,” she says.
Jensen provided client specifications. “Jim wanted to illustrate various compositions that could be used above and beyond what is illustrated in their catalogue. Because Karndean is easily installed and can be cut down, the students were able to use their images in different ways,” Vincent says. “For example, if you wanted to create vignettes such as a mountain peak scene, you have to graphically communicate that for the installer.”
Hartley provided the floor plan and the description of what Jensen wanted to accomplish. The students went to work, creating to-scale drawings that included window locations and site changes such as walls that would be torn down where vignettes would be laid out.
“This gave the students real world experience and challenges they’d find working in the industry. Before this, they may not have understood how different materials could be combined. They’re taught about materials but not necessarily the thicknesses or how products relate to each other. Once you’re on a job you learn those things, but in a school setting it’s more about space planning and how to communicate your ideas, so this was invaluable. They were learning how to specify materials regarding the end users.”
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Janella Ashbaugh, winner of the design challenge, agrees. “It’s the first time they’ve presented something like this to a school. I think it’s great that they were willing to let the students try this. It gave us a look at what that might feel like in a real life situation.”
Ashbaugh is a non-traditional student enrolled in the two-year program. The 57-year-old grandmother joined the program this past summer looking for a new career. Ashbaugh was laid off from a company where she had worked for 25 years as a printed circuit board designer. After seven years doing contract work, Ashbaugh decided “I worked for three major companies in this city and all of them ended up sending the work overseas. So I needed to find work that wouldn’t be sent overseas and that had growth and potential. Because I was doing a lot of drafting, I felt this would fit. Plus, I love to watch the design shows on TV so I thought ‘why don’t I make that my occupation instead of just doing it for fun.’”
Twelve students entered the competition and the designs were submitted to Jensen. “There were three of us involved in picking the winner,” Jensen says. Jensen, Carpet Mill fulltime designer Peggy Powers, and Carpet Mill President Wayne Jensen made the final selection, choosing Ashbaugh’s creation.
“There were some particulars we gave as requirements to the design – how the showroom needed to flow and how we wanted a walk path with racks on one side, carpet on another side. The winning plan met our needs and followed the floor plan better than the others. Plus it was a very interesting design,” Jensen says.
Ashbaugh says, “The style really came from the product. There were so many aspects to this project with a variety of tiles, wood and fabulous borders. I looked at how I wanted it to flow. We had a phone interview with our ‘client’ and that gave us more information. He wanted one area only in tile and a certain color. Since that was already spoken for, I looked at what I had left. The ideas came to me as I looked at the material.
I wanted something that would not be ordinary.”Jensen was impressed with the process. “I think it was an excellent resource. There were a lot of unique ideas; some were very ‘outside-the-box.’ We sometimes get stuck doing the same things because that’s how we’ve always done it, so it was nice to see it from a fresh viewpoint.”
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Hartley says, “From Karndean’s point of view, we felt this would expose our product to some future interior designers and some bright new minds in the industry early on in their career. And this would give them real world experience in actually putting a design together, pulling in different design elements and talking with the end user.”From FRCC’s perspective this was a valuable experience, says Claudia Romero, Integrated Technology Department chair and program director of Computer Aided Drafting and Interior Design. FRCC’s role in education is to get students into the industry as quickly as possible and this type of activity supports that mission.
“We provide career and technical programs to retrain people in second careers or, for younger individuals, we help them find a career path.” Practical experience is part of the requirement for instructors. “Classes are taught by instructors who are in design, architecture and have a career in the industry. So we like to bring real-life projects to the classroom.”Ashbaugh says she hopes the challenge will be offered to future classes. “I hope they will continue this. I’m hoping they plan it into every semester so students can do a field trip and look at the space and talk to someone face to face.”
She says the experience was fun but offers an idea for future projects like this one. “Since students range from very entry level to those who have been here a couple of years, there was a va Front Range Community College’s Graphic Communications 2009 class earned valuable real life experience designing Carpet Mill’s new showroom of Karndean products. riety of experience in the classroom and we brainstormed back and forth. I almost wish, instead of being a competition, that it was a classroom project. I would have liked to have done it as a work experience with other people.”
Future projects are definitely a possibility. “Rod would like to do this annually and I agree,” Vincent says. “I think it’s important to get the vendors in front of the students. I’ll be reaching out to those I know in the field so we can do that.”
Jensen agrees. “I think this is the type of project I foresee us doing on a more regular basis with new products. This is a very different look from any of our other showrooms. We needed a fresh perspective and I think we got that. The students were terrific to work with and it was one very unique and fun experience from my standpoint.”
Kay Rios, Ph.D., is a freelance writer in Fort Collins. She writes for a variety of publications and is currently at work on a collection of creative non-fiction and a mystery novel.