Graduates honoured in trans-Tasman design awards

Three Massey students who graduated yesterday have even more reason to celebrate after earning accolades in a category of the Australasian Student Design Awards.

Gemma Loving-Hutchins, Morgan Terry and Jasmin Yee, all aged 22, achieved first, third and a commendation respectively in the interior design section of the awards, which recognise the best student designs in Australia and New Zealand.

The University's programme coordinator for spatial design, Sven Mehzoud, says the trio’s success reflects well on the teaching of the subject at Massey.

“It shows the excellent quality of the programme as well as the students and continues our particular approach to interior spatial design,” Mr Mehzoud says. Spatial design, which originates from interior design, is the practice of imagining, forming and creating environments that consider space, time and sensory inhabitation.

Ms Loving-Hutchins' winning interior design concept for a pier beside Frank Kitts Park in Wellington emphasised architecture as an environment continually shifting in space and time. Her prizes included $1000 cash and student membership of the Design Institute of Australia for one year.

“It’s really great to see that our group has excelled so well and that we’re being recognised for this.”

Her success is also being recognised in other institutions too, with the RMIT University in Melbourne inviting her to speak at a conference involving architects, artists, designers and students and featuring discussions about the nature of drawing.

In the same awards, another Massey student Jane Maree Hills was first in the textile design section, with Tessa Gourley placed third in visual design, while in industrial design Nick Eaton was commended as was Daniel Kempka for furniture design.

All three interior design category achievers graduated from the Michael Fowler Centre yesterday with Bachelor of Design degrees with first-class honours.