Interior design majors who entered the 12th Annual Steelcase NEXT Student Design Competition faced a lofty challenge: designing a 16,000-square-foot workplace spread across two floors in a Chicago office building. Their designs would have to meet the evolving needs of a global advertising agency’s employees and clients, from private offices and shared workspaces to a monumental staircase connecting the two floors.
University of Wisconsin-Stout interior design senior Khendra Thompson rose to this challenge with a creative, detailed entry that wowed a professional panel of judges, beating out four other finalists from a field that began with 1,600 students from across the continent.
Jerry Holmes and Denise Calehuff, co-organizers of the competition and design alliances principals at Steelcase, said Thompson emerged from a talented field of finalists on the strength of her detailed design concept as well as the skillful way she presented it to the judges.
“You might have the best design, but if you can’t communicate it to your client, you’re not going to get hired for the project,” Holmes said, referring to the competitive nature of the industry. “And that’s where Khendra was exceptional. She was outstanding in how she presented her project.”
Calehuff noted that Thompson’s submission looked like something a professional design firm would produce, a fact that was amplified when she presented it to the judges in late February. “What really came to light was when she talked about the concept, she talked about the research, and she really thoughtfully expressed how the concept wove into everything that she did,” Calehuff said. “That was the ‘a-ha moment’ that the judges had.”
The competition has been sponsored since 2013 by Steelcase, an international maker of furniture, storage, seating, and other products for offices and other spaces. Thompson and the other finalists from universities across the United States and Canada were flown to Steelcase’s headquarters in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in mid-February for their final presentations.
UW-Stout interior design students have taken part in the Steelcase competition for several years, and in 2023 then-senior Sidney Franz earned an honorable mention for her entry.
Winner praised for client relations skills
The project brief that students received as part of the competition was extremely detailed and accurately depicted the kinds of projects they will encounter as professionals, Tomski said. In the scenario, the judges acted as clients from a fictional advertising agency called NEXT who sought designs for a new corporate office on two floors of a building in the Fulton Market District of Chicago’s Near West Side.
Delivering what these theoretical clients asked for in a thoughtful, creative way is what helped Thompson win the contest. “One of the reasons Khendra is such a fantastic young designer is because she’s a really good listener,” Tomski said. “If we’re doing it right as interior designers, we craft with empathy.”
Listening carefully prompted Thompson to go the extra mile for her client. For example, at her instructor’s suggestion, Thompson created a logo for the fictional business. Latching onto this idea – as well as the client’s mantra of “Being More Human” – Thompson crafted a logo based on the triple bar symbol that represents “identity” in mathematics. The logo features parallel bars of color, each with a specific meaning, and is reflected in the parallel layers of design in the physical space. These include layered furnishings, a layered benching system in a collaborative area, and the layers created by a mezzanine overlooking a monumental staircase connecting two floors. “There’s this transparency between the floors, speaking to your identity being transparent,” Thompson said.
The “Being More Human” theme dovetailed with Steelcase’s own people-centered corporate culture, Thompson said. “They put people at the front of what they do, and I really kind of grabbed that and drew from it. My concept was based on identity – the identity of the company, the people who work there, the brands that they serve,” she said.
Thompson’s design also included a game space, which would allow workers to relax together. This aligns with research that Steelcase has promoted which says gaming spaces in the workplace can help inspire creativity. Other design elements include a fireplace, yoga and relaxation rooms, indoor gardens, and a space to display clients’ work.
Thompson spent six to eight weeks preparing her 40-page contest entry. Working from basic floorplans for the Chicago office, Thompson drew inspiration from the metropolis and the neighborhood, including elements such as Chicago’s “Garden City” nickname and Prairie Style architecture. These inspirations are reflected in the colors, textures, spaces and other design elements that she used to create more detailed floorplans of a dynamic office that offered a variety of workspaces. Next, these floorplans were brought to photorealistic life with the help of 3D modeling software.
Thompson’s attention to detail wasn’t lost on the judges or contest organizers. “We thought that someone could actually work in a space like that,” Calehuff said. “It looked like a real project that a design firm would potentially do.”
Thompson is hopeful the competition victory – which included a $2,500 scholarship as well as $2,500 for UW-Stout’s interior design program – will help open doors in her future career. In fact, she said, the competition has already allowed her to make connections in the industry.
“The biggest thing I’ve taken away from this experience is confidence in the different skill sets that I have,” she said.
The interior design program is part of UW-Stout’s School of Art and Design, which offers six Bachelor of Fine Arts, two Bachelor of Science programs and a Master of Fine Arts in design. It is one of the largest public art and design schools in the Upper Midwest with nearly 1,300 students.
