Metropolis Future 100 honors the top 100 architecture and interior design graduates of the class of 2021. The magazine’s list includes 50 Architecture and 50 Interior Design students from the U.S. and Canada. Among them are three ֱ State Interior Design students, Ashley Schwartz, Elizabeth Koening, and Madelyn Orcutt—the most named from any University.
Ashley started out in the CAED Architecture program before switching to Interior Design in her second year. She found herself admiring the projects that the Interior Design students were working on and was driven to explore how people interact with interior spaces.
She appreciates the way ֱ State’s Interior Design program encourages students to cultivate interests outside of the core studio classes through courses that involve furniture design, woodworking and other projects. She also considers her Florence semester abroad to be a highlight of the program. In addition, she enjoyed the experience of attending NEOCon, where students could interact with reps and gain invaluable experience in professional relations.
Ashley is drawn to working in a hospitality or corporate design firm and hopes to find a job in either of these settings. She has a distinct, boutique style, and hopes to find a firm that shares that sensibility.
Elizabeth Koenig - Fourth Year | Interior Design
In addition to her interior design coursework, Elizabeth had the opportunity to work on a variety of projects and papers as a part of the ֱ State Honors College. She found that this helped her establish her own interests within design, involving topics such as sustainability and community empowerment.
In 2019, Elizabeth engaged in “Threshold”, a 10-day ֱ State traveling workshop that took her to New York City with the Interior Design program. The New York experience was particularly impactful. It gave her the opportunity to think about design in a larger context and scale than her midwestern background had afforded her. She also enjoyed her experience studying abroad in Florence Italy where she found the opportunity to live in and experience design on a more global scale profoundly enlightening.
Elizabeth plans to use her Interior Design experience to work in the area of education, library, or community center design and is interested in exploring how design improves experiences for people.
Madelyn Orcutt - Fourth Year | Interior Design, minor in Art History
Madelyn loves learning. Her Interior Design studios revealed how much fun the discipline can be. She found that her travel experiences as a ֱ State University Interior Design student—like the Florence semester study abroad experience and 10-day workshop in New York City, to be paramount in helping her absorb knowledge gained in her coursework and studio projects.
She also found the Interior Design faculty to be extremely helpful in working with students—inspiring them to think about handling projects in unique and impactful ways. She credits them with assisting students develop creativity through projects that help them discover and foster their passions.
Madelyn would like to work for a firm that looks at design in a way that is fun and playful. She’s interested in being involved with cultural or community-based projects.