April 27th, 2015: The symbolic connecting of cultures was the inspiration for students Nida Ahmed and Shaikh Uzair in their winning entry at the recent Canadian University Dubai (CUD) Exhibition Stand Design Competition.
Organized by the School of Architecture and Interior Design, the competition called upon students to come up with a contemporary exhibition stand design, with a focus on sustainability, innovation and functionality. Eleven teams involving 22 students submitted their designs for the contest, with Nida and Shaikh taking first place for their concept, which was directly inspired by the University’s logo.
Nida explained, “The logo shows a symbolic unity between Canada and the Middle East through the combining of a maple leaf and a palm tree. For the stand design, we abstracted this symbol to create a modern interpretation of the notion of connectivity, which also represents the multicultural nature of the University itself.”
Nida, an Interior Design student, and Shaikh, who is studying for a Bachelor of Architecture, received their winners’ certificates and AED 3,000 prize money from University President, Dr. Karim Chelli, at an award ceremony honouring all of those students who took part.
The competition finale saw all the entries come to life with scaled models being placed on display as the contest winners were announced. The competition runners up Sultan Rashid, Safiya Yahaya and Sheldon Fonseca, along with third place team Sadaf Sabeti, Mnuara Zubaidildayeva, and Ali Sourghali also received their winners’ certificates, along with AED 2,000 and AED 1,000 respectively in prize money.
The award ceremony was the culmination of a month-long concept development, design and assembly process that was launched at the School’s Interior Design Day event held in March. The event also included both student and company design exhibitions and hosted a presentation about exhibition design from Mr. Dorian Pauwels, Partner and Executive Director of IkonHouse.
Mr. Serkan Gunay, Assistant Professor and Chair in the School of Architecture and Interior Design commented, “This is the second time we have organized a student competition in the University alongside our Interior Design Day.
“The student’s participation this year has been very good in terms of the quality of the works and their level of design. It has also been very encouraging to see early years students participating and demonstrating the level of skill required to compete in a contest such as this.
Both the competition and the Interior Design Day event provide excellent opportunities for our students to engage with companies and interact with design professional before they graduate, and the level of participation among Interior Design students was very positive indeed.”
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