CCA News
Interior Design Student Awarded CIDA Scholarship
Posted on Tuesday, June 23, 2009, by Sarah Owens
The Council for Interior Design Accreditation (CIDA), based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, awarded one of its three national scholarships to Interior Design student Ginny Uyesugi. The Keith Hooks Scholarship, a national scholarship is awarded to junior-level interior design students. It was created in 2008 in honor of the former CIDA volunteer director and founder of Hooks Design + Architecture in San Francisco (now ASD) who died that year after a long battle with cancer.
“The scholarship rewards promising students who demonstrate the values that Keith Hooks embraced—hard work, integrity, and excellence,” states CIDA member Leina Zimmerman. “Keith’s colleagues and friends are proud to partner with CIDA in honoring the outstanding academic achievements of these award recipients.”
Other 2009 scholarship recipients include Elizabeth Charney of Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and Roselyn Rheaume of Kwantlen University College, in Vancouver, British Columbia. The three students were each given $3,000 to be applied toward tuition at a CIDA-accredited interior design program of their choice.
Uyesugi learned about the scholarship opportunity from CCA’s Katherine Lambert, chair of the Interior Design Program. Uyesugi’s scholarship application included a set of project boards from her fall 2008 Studio Practice 3 course. Her award-winning design features a brick-and-mortar iTunes retail store intended for downtown San Francisco. “This project proposes to translate the time-based experience of the online iTunes store into a physical retail space,” Uyesugi elaborates. “By doing so, the human element is reintroduced in a way that allows for social connections with other music lovers, as well as live performances, both of which are void in the virtual store environment.”
Uyesugi also is the CCA campus center president for the International Interior Design Association (IIDA). In this role she focuses on unique projects that uphold sustainability for the San Francisco campus. One of her fundraising ideas was to introduce a line of sketchbooks to sell that use repurposed printer paper. Uyesugi’s energized projects have inspired her to start a dialogue about what it means to be a “sustainable student.”
The Council for Interior Design Accreditation is an independent, nonprofit accrediting organization responsible for setting standards and evaluating degree-granting interior design programs. Visit the CIDA website to learn more about CIDA’s awards and membership information.