My Dream Project Caps off a Great Season at Berkeley College!
Teaming up with the New York Jets, Berkeley College Professor Kenia Lama; and alumni Marta Deptula and Lauren DiGenova, to transform the basement of Brian – a diehard Jets fan, into the ultimate fan cave, was truly a dream come true!
Coming from a family that gathers around the television every Sunday to watch football, I can appreciate how important it is to have a space to cheer on your favorite team, while being surrounded by memorabilia that shows your undying loyalty, and memories of past seasons! I was able to take all of the skills that I have acquired from the dedicated and inspiring faculty at Berkeley’s Interior Design program to apply to this project. I will surely use it as I graduate this year, and venture out into the world of interior design!
Just like the Jets players have to work together to get the win, collaborating as a team is something that we often do as interior designers. With Professor Lama acting as our captain and quarterback, Lauren, Marta and I were able to assist her in the design of this space. As calling a play on the field is to designing a floorplan in a room, we had to make a functioning layout that made sense for the space and the room’s purpose. There were certainly some design challenges that we needed to address – like an unfortunate pipe in the middle of the room. We painted the pipe gang green’s other color counterpart – white, and used this pipe to anchor the custom bar. A closet door that had an obstructive outswing was replaced with a functioning barn door. In the end, the game winning touchdown was certainly the custom, one-of-a-kind black and white mural given to us from the Jets archive and signed on the reveal day by Jet’s defensive tackle, Steve McLendon.
Without the curriculum taught in Berkeley College’s Interior Design department, I wouldn’t be the designer that I am today. I have learned how to acknowledge design issues, address them, and fix these issues in a way that is both aesthetically pleasing and functional. Seeing the look on Brian’s face when we revealed to him his new and improved basement was all I needed to remind me that I have made the right decision to become an interior designer educated in the Interior Design program at the Berkeley College School of Professional Studies.
Read more about this exciting experience!
