Colorado State’s Interior Design Students Present Designs for South Fork and Lamar Projects

Colorado State University’s interior design students, who developed designs for two Colorado sites, will present one of their annual Community Service Design projects April 17 on campus.

The Community Service Design program, headed by Brian Dunbar, associate professor of design, merchandising and consumer sciences, and graduate student Julie Freck, began when a group of junior interior design students traveled to South Fork and Lamar, sites of this year’s projects.

For South Fork, students designed a necessary multi-use municipal building that includes a town hall, marshal’s office, library, firehouse and ambulance service. Twenty students will present their designs to the South Fork City Council and mayor from 9:30-noon April 17 in Aylesworth Hall on campus. Designs chosen by this panel will be awarded and possibly used for future implementation.

Earlier this semester, 16 students were involved with a similar project in Lamar, the county seat for Prowers County. During a two-day visit, students measured, photographed and interviewed residents for a community building at the county fairgrounds. Students presented their schematic designs to judges April 15.

Dunbar said this type of community service project gives students an opportunity to experience the process used in design projects and learn about interacting with actual clients.

"From my experience in employing service integration design projects for the past five years, I’m convinced that students work harder and gain more career-applicable skills than from traditional textbook assignments," Dunbar said.

Interior design is a program in the department of design, merchandising and consumer sciences in the College of Applied Human Sciences.