Fourth-year interior design student Anastasia Czarnick was selected by the Angelo Donghia Foundation for a $30,000 scholarship as one of 13 winners of its 2012 Student Scholarship Program in Interior Design.
Czarnick is the fifth UNL student in the College of Architecture to have won the Donghia scholarship. Launched in 2002, the foundation awards scholarships to deserving students who are entering their senior year in a baccalaureate program in interior design. There were 77 student projects submitted by accredited institutions across the country. The $30,000 scholarships go to support the student’s senior year of tuition, housing, books, and other financial support.
Czarnick is a graduate of Columbus High School. She said her project was driven by the interior design program and involved a high-end accessory retail space: an existing four-story building on Bloor Street in Toronto, with the first two floors housing the program. The main product being sold in the space under the design challenge would be luxury handbags, and accessories including wallets, belts, gloves, watches, scarves, lug-gage, hats, eye wear, fragrance, jewelry, outerwear, furs and briefcases. In addition to retail space, support spaces included restrooms, storage rooms, and women and men lounges.
“Videndum, a Latin word defined as a thing to be seen, became the intention to define the quality and experience of the space,” Czarnick said in her submission materials. “Design strategies employed to achieve this were the utilization of acrylic crosspieces with repetitive frames to show-case the product and integrate the product, while creating more intimate spaces within the larger store. These were also used to form benches to create tactile moments of engagement and house an integrated lighting system.”
“Ana is a very talented designer with an excellent work ethic,” said Betsy Gabb, professor and interior design program director. “She has strong conceptual ideas which she implements throughout a design down to the smallest details."
The Angelo Donghia Foundation, created under the will of the Angelo Donghia, is a private, nonprofit organization that supports two distinct fields: The advancement of education in the field of interior design, and initiatives researching AIDS.