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Alumni profiles
Luke Van Duyn
Luke Van Duyn ('07) mixed modern and classical elements (above image) along with a few Asian accents to create a House of Yue-Sai look for the dynamic entrepreneur's new home interiors business. People magazine called Chinese-American Yue-Sai Kan "the most famous woman in China." The owner of the largest cosmetics company in China, she recently turned her eye to the interiors of homes, and hired Van Duyn to lead this effort.
Meaghan Beever
Meaghan Beever graduated in May 2006 with her MA Interior Design degree. As an interior design graduate student, Meaghan enjoyed great success, winning first place in a national design competition sponsored by the Institute of Store Planners and working as a research assistant to WSU Spokane vice chancellor and interior design professor Jo Ann Thompson, editor-in-chief of the Journal of Interior Design.
Meaghan is currently pursuing the Doctor of Design degree at Washington State University Spokane while gaining teaching experience at WSU and Utah State University. Upon receipt of her D.Des, Meaghan plans to make academia her permanent home and feels well preapred because of her involvement with the Interdisciplinary Design Institute.
“The opportunity to work on the premier publication of scholarly research in our field with Dr. Thompson and scholars around the country who are contributing to the field of interior design is irreplaceable,” Beever said. “I really enjoy the conceptual development of a project or understanding the theory behind design.”
Jennifer Paige
Interior Design alum (May 2006) Jennifer Paige (Frost) recently passed the NCIDQ exam and is developing quite the professional portfolio at Rice Fergus Miller (RFM) in Bremerton, WA. Paige has served as the lead designer on the renovation of RFM headquarters, including designing to meet LEED Platinum guidelines. Paige has also been active in the area of Senior Housing Repositioning. This involves RFM working with existing senior communities looking to renovate while the economy is down so that they can be ready to market when things improve. Recent projects include Park Shore Retirement Community (see before and after photos), Emerald Heights Retirement Community Master Plan and Renovations, Horizon House, and CRISTA Senior Living Master Plan
Valerie Bartels
Sustainability, an overarching theme of the initiatives and curriculum at the Interdisciplinary Design Institute, is also the driving force behind recent graduate Valerie Bartel’s final M.Arch project. Bartels developed a master plan of the Puyallup Fairgrounds—a 160-acre site located in the downtown core of Puyallup, Washington—as an effort to weave a more hands-on agricultural focus back into the fair experience.
Her plan utilizes some of the existing structures on the grounds, but also creates "mounds" or buildings that lift up the landscape and place program facilities beneath. The mounds are created from pervious surfaces such as Geofoam—a lightweight cellular concrete—wire mesh cubes filled with recyclables, allowing for natural water flow on the site. This makes it possible to rely on natural irrigation and saves on the cost of bringing in soil. This type of structure allows the use of both top and bottom areas for agriculture and commercial programming, ultimately providing a two-level experience at the fairgrounds and nearly doubling the usable square footage.
Associate professor of Architecture Matt Cohen served as the committee chair for Bartel’s project. Cohen says, “Valerie’s project is bold, original and tackles complex issues such as loss of farmland and the role of agriculture in an increasingly suburbanized part of the state.” Valerie Bartels graduated in December 2010 with a Master of Architecture degree and is currently employed at Erickson McGovern Architects in Tacoma, WA.
See full article at (link)
WSU Spokane alumni
Other alumni are working for a variety of successful firms nationwide, including:
ALSC, Spokane
Avery Brooks & Associates, Las Vegas
BCRA, Tacoma
Bruce Boody, Montana
Callison, Seattle
Carrier Johnson, San Diego
City of Juneau, Alaska
Collins Woerman, Seattle
Dahlin Group, San Francisco
Earth Data, Maryland
Erickson McGovern, Tacoma
Freiheit & Ho, Kirkland
Integrus, Spokane
Jon Graves, Tacoma
KDF Architecture, Yakima
Land Expressions, Spokane
LMN, Seattle
LRS, Portland
Madsen Mitchell, Spokane
Mariani Landscape, Illinois
Mia Lehrer, Los Angeles
MulvannyG2, Bellevue
NAC, Spokane
NBBJ, Seattle
OMS, Spokane
RiceFergusMiller, Bremerton, WA
Wagner Architects, Seattle
Weber Thompson, Seattle
