Three ACU students were honored for their creation in hotel design for the 25th annual Brass Ring design competition for interior designers.
Ashley Ohlhausen, senior interior design major from Abilene, received the bronze award for her design, “Mareas Vivas Hotel.” Alex Potess, senior interior design major from Lubbock, and Lisha Cottrill, junior interior design major from Cedar Hill, both received honorable mentions for their work as well.
With more than 1,600 entries, ACU was the only private university that earned awards.
Kitty Wasemiller, professor of art and design, said that students had many categories to choose from entering this year, and that any material designed throughout the year was permitted for submission.
“The projects the students chose to enter in this time were all nonresidential and commercial,” Wasemiller said. “They were futuristic hotel designs for 20 years in the future, so that was interesting. The competition simply required that it be a commercial project, so their work was in there competing with hospitals, restaurants and a wide array of other things.”
The background for the revolutionary designs were based off hospitality.
“Our goal was to find technology that would be different than anything we know now,” Cottrill said. “Since it’s set 20 years in the future, I had to imagine what kind of things would be invented by then.”
The biggest obstacle in designing the art, Cottrill said, was trying to create an establishment that met the needs of a futuristic society.
“The most difficult part was trying to imagine what kind of needs people would have in the future that could be settled with technology,” she said. “For example, a lot of the stuff that I came up with had to do with self-service and individualization, like walls that would change colors depending on what person was staying in that room for that weekend.”
Wasemiller said the design competition boosts student drive, in both extracurricular aspects as well as possible careers.
“Any time you have a winning entry, it definitely gives you a level of confidence confirming how you are in competition against your peers,” Wasemiller said. “That is always a big plus I will usually see in a student’s drive knowing that they have competed successfully. It makes them more bold and more capable in doing their next assignment to a greater degree just because of that confidence level.”
