Top RSA Design Awards for DJCAD Interior Environmental Design Students
Published On Mon 1 Jun 2015 by Grant Hill
For the third consecutive year Interior Environmental Design students from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design have achieved success at the RSA Student Design Awards.
Third-year students Helen Karwot and Magdalena Borzecka have won prestigious national awards for designing innovative responses to the RSA ‘Creative Conditions’ brief. The pair received the accolades after attending a commercial awareness workshop, submitting spatially related projects, liaising with mentors and attending interviews in London.
The Creative Conditions brief was sponsored by the Royal Bank of Scotland and asked students to design and develop a vision and business case for an environment or situation that prompts and fosters creative thinking.
Twenty-year-old Helen, originally from Cumbernauld, developed a proposal called ‘PULSE’, a mobile music workshop to encourage collaborative creativity in dementia patients. The music therapy provided would assist in improving mobility, enhance problem solving abilities and reduce chronic pain while the music generated by the patients would stimulate long forgotten memories.
Poland-born Magdalena (27) devised ‘Plug–In’. The concept was a mobile 3D printer lab serving as a creative platform to support people and communities who lack access to adequate equipment, tools or ‘fab lab’ experiences to help them to develop their creative capacities. ‘Plug-In’ would travel to the likes of schools, colleges, businesses and communities around the country.
Tutor Linsey McIntosh said, “We are delighted that Helen and Magdalena have achieved great success at the RSA Student Design Awards, and have represented Interior Environmental Design at DJCAD in the competition so professionally for the third year in a row.
“Both Helen and Magdalena’s spatial designs and business cases were very grounded and responded to current issues, while still being very innovative and of an extremely high standard. We’re very proud of their achievements and how they conducted themselves throughout the competition, displaying creative thinking and passion.
“Our newly integrated service design approach in the Interior Environmental Design department has really assisted in helping our students tackle real world issues from a spatial perspective. We now look forward to seeing how Helen and Magdalena take advantage of these great RSA opportunities and experiences in their final year work.”
Both Helen and Magdalena jointly won the Royal Bank of Scotland Award for Best Business Case, splitting the £1000 prize. Magdalena was also Commended for Best Design Project. Both students were awarded Fellowship of the RSA for one year.
Helen and Magdalena’s awards will give them the chance to fund travel expenses to educational and networking events, and allow them to develop their interest in spatial and social design.
They will receive their awards at a prestigious event at the RSA on the 11th June 2015 and their work is now on display, along with other winners, in an online showcase at http://sda.thersa.org/en/showcase.
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