LECTURERS and students at The Design School in Taylor’s University’s Faculty of Built Environment, Engineering, Technology and Design have won 13 prizes at the recent GARIS 20SATU Malaysian Institute of Interior Designers (MIID) Dulux Interior Design Students’ Saturday 2017 event.
An annual congregation of interior design students nationwide, the event aims to empower young creative minds, who are the future professionals in the field, through exchange of ideas.
Out of the 13 prizes, six were first prizes for Garis Perabut (Furniture Category), Garis Arca (Sculpture Category), Design Category (Commercial Design) Degree Level and Design Category (Residential Design) Degree Level as well as two from the Inter College — Live Competition (Collage Category) and Garis Fikir (Design Category) Degree Level.
Design School head Ernesto Pujazon said: “We are proud of the recognition of our lecturers and students by the MIID. Their achievements at this competition are a testament to the quality of students and graduates from Taylor’s who meet expectations of the panel of judges, many of whom are renowned designers.”
First prizewinner of the Design Category (Residential Design) Degree level, Tee Yong Sin, from the Bachelor of Arts (Honours) Interior Architecture programme, said he focused on his experience as an urban renter while designing his project.
“The lack of communal connection prompted me to create a co-housing living system. I kept in mind young and fresh independent makers hungry for human interaction, and who spend their nights alone in a typical urban rental accommodation.
“I used to pay expensive monthly rental for a 9sq m room, which at times was a space partitioned within the kitchen of a housing unit.
“With the living and dining areas also partitioned into more rooms, dwellers live in isolation without interaction.
“This is an unhealthy living typology for the urban renter,” he said.
His Affordavility project looks at the co-housing environment with a focus on building a sense of community, using shared spaces and facilities to create a convenient and fulfilling lifestyle for youths.
Tee created a flexible space, allowing renters to move between private and communal modes to adapt to different situations.
His coursemate, Nurul Anis Aisyah Safri, was a member of a group which won first place in the Garis Arca category.
“We made an interactive sculpture, called the Journey of Arrival, Habitation and Departure, revolving around the circle of life where a person enters and uses a space, and has two choices of exit — the easy or the hard way out fighting through obstacles, which results in a better outcome for oneself,” said Nurul Anis who teamed up with Darren Ho, Janson Chen, Alia Azmi and Fiona Alfri.
“The judges were surprised by the structure using numerous methods of joinery.
“Many students were afraid to go into the structure for fear it might break. But it was unlikely to happen and we encouraged them to try it out,” added Nurul Anis.
The furniture design project of first-year Bachelor of Arts (Honours) Interior Architecture students, Chua Wee Jing and Sheik Irfaan Mustun, focused on creating collapsible furniture which can be transformed into at least two positions.
“However, we came up with five positions including turning it into a beach chair, coffee table, table, a bench and an option for storage,” said Sheik Irfaan after winning the Garis Perabut (Furniture Category).
“We were inspired by a spider and after observing its movements in a natural environment, we translated them into furniture design and called it the Spider Seat.
“As first-year students, we did not anticipate reaching the finals so it was a pleasant surprise.
“The project posed more challenges than we anticipated, especially in locking the furniture according to its intended shape and function.”
Taylor’s University went head to head with 17 tertiary institutions such as Sunway University, UCSI University, SEGi University, INTI University, Universiti Sains Malaysia, City University, The One Academy, Malaysian Institute of Art and Saito Academy.
Organised by MIID and hosted by Universiti Teknologi MARA, Puncak Alam, the event attracted 1,300 participants.