The Kelowna Interior Design Students took part in an educational and motivational event this Wednesday at the

The Kelowna Interior Design students were privileged to receive a tour of The Factory last Thursday.

We recently sat down to interview our Kelowna Interior Design Department Head, Gisela Scholze. With over 25 years in the industry, she is quite the wealth of knowledge for her students, and has brought in many industry connections to her instructing, meaning that her students get the benefit of working on many real world projects before they graduate.

Listen in to our conversation!

Spotlight on Gisela Scholze

CAT: When did you first discover your interest in interior design?

A common question that we get from future design students is, “what is the difference between Interior Design and Interior Decorating”?  We answered this on a broad scale in an earlier blog post: (What is the difference between Interior Design and Interior Decorating – January 2012).

We recently caught up with one of our Interior Design grads from Kelowna, Jolanda Redeker. Jolanda graduated from the program in 2010, and she currently works as an Interior Designer for her own business “Homme” in conjunction with a full time position on the Project Management team of a pipeline project at an oil and gas company. Her business “Homme”, which means ‘man’ in French, targets men who are seeking interior design solutions.

For Fredericton students Abby Burgess, Ben Irvine, and Rachael Quackenbush the Interior Design practicum experience was taken to the next level. Mike Ross, executive director for Restore Fredericton approached our class with the opportunity to aid in a new possible housing idea that will be brought to Habitat for Humanity, or to re-design the Restore store.

After fundraising for several months, Joslin Miller and Rachael Quackenbush, Interior Design students from the Fredericton campus, set out to take their learning to the next level and traveled to New York for a week.

Rachael said “It was a great opportunity to enhance our hands-on learning experience at the Centre and travel to capture historical and modern design and architecture to help create future design ideas”.

By Christine Turner @ Mission Group (Kelowna)

Only seven votes separated two teams of interior design students from the Centre for Arts and Technology Okanagan in Kelowna’s Next Top Designer team contest, which closed Sunday, May 27th, 2012.

After tallying up the large number of votes submitted team ‘Hooked It Up’ edged out team ‘Maled It’ for the bragging honours at the Dwell town home community on Ambrosi Road.

Four of our second year Interior Design students took advantage of a great opportunity when they were invited to the Association of Registered Interior Designers of New Brunswick (ARIDNB)/ Interior Designers of Canada (IDC) Design Exchange and Tabletop show in Stanhope, PEI.