Café Planning

First-year Interior Design students recently completed the first phase of a studio-based planning exercise under the direction of professors Natalie Cooper and Dale Landry. They were asked to design and execute a barrier-free planning concept for a restaurant café. Each student worked with the same base building shell, researching occupancy class, barrier-free building code requirements as well as space planning guidelines.

At right, first-year student Douglas Caldwell checks out the plans.

At the beginning of the project, students visited the Oasis with cameras and tape measures in hand to understand and record dimensions and ergonomic considerations with relation to fixed booth and casual seating arrangements.

Once the plans were completed, they participated in a peer review and planning critique in the corridor of A building. Each student had an opportunity to evaluate the planning and select the three best floor plans. This opportunity allowed students to collaborate and analyze the similarities and differences in each plan.

The students worked in teams to complete the final phase of the project involving finalized floor plans, interior elevations, a perspective view of the restaurant, an image and finishes board as well as written documentation of all phases of the project. Students Rebecca Barr, Megan Hall and Jessical Vidal won top honours for their design.