The students, who are all currently studying the second year of their foundation degree in Hospitality Management, awarded by Plymouth University, undertook the project as part of their course and spent time working with Cathryn Bishop, Director of Cornish Interiors, at her office in St Kew in north Cornwall, to get a feel for what interior design involves.
Cathryn, whose work includes both residential and commercial properties located throughout the county and beyond, combined advising the students on what they needed to consider in their designs, including functionality, cost, comfort, practicality and even colour psychology, with a trip around Plymouth to look at her recent projects, such as The Glassblowing House on the Barbican.
As part of their assignment, the students then designed their own concepts for Trevenson Restaurant, putting together presentations and mood boards using fabric, flooring and wallpaper samples, to showcase their ideas to Cathryn, their peers and course tutors, as well as the Curriculum Area Manager for Hospitality at Cornwall College Camborne, Stuart Mathieson.
Cathryn said: “All the presentations and ideas were really different and well thought out, with lots of detail and different elements. I was impressed! The students had put a lot of hard work into this project and it was great to see such a high level of professionalism from non-designers. I’ll be really interested to see that the end result looks like when Trevenson is finished.”
Student Laura Parry, 22 from Wadebridge, who based her concept around a duck-egg blue and chocolate brown colour scheme, said: “This assignment has been fun and I’ve really enjoyed it. My inspiration came from some wallpaper I’d seen, so I based my ideas around that. The fact that some of our ideas might actually get used by the College is what made me get so creative!
Stuart Mathieson said: “We were very impressed with the ideas our students came up with and this was a great chance for them to learn from an industry professional whilst working on a live project like this. They’ve certainly given us huge amounts of things to think about and hopefully we’ll be able to incorporate some of our students’ ideas into the finished design.”
