Cindy Chan\nErika Sammons, 31, said it\u2019s an honour to be one of the five designers chosen for the IDC Top 5 Under 5. She and the other winners will be going to Toronto for an award ceremony and conference.<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\nThis year’s challenge was to design a retail and networking space for the women of an organization called Women’s Education and Literacy Nepal (WELNepal) which provides education to women in Nepal.<\/p>\n
“The design challenge was twofold: we had to create a space for the women to sell their agricultural goods, with a display space, storage space, and space to do the active selling, and then the second function was to create a casual space for learning opportunities,” Sammons explained.<\/p>\n
A complete stranger to the country of Nepal and the WELNepal organization, Sammons did a lot of research, which led her to focus her design on Nepal’s natural resources.<\/p>\n
“It had to be culturally and socially appropriate,” Sammons said.<\/p>\n
The IDC provided the floor plan with which the contestants worked.<\/p>\n
Sammons pulled up several images of her winning design, pointing out its elements.<\/p>\n
“I was looking at creating a space with sort of flexible and porous boundaries,” Sammons explained, pointing at various spots in the design on her iPad mini.<\/p>\n
“Here are milk crates which would display their produce,” Sammons said. “These are jute rope dividers where women could pull them back or forward, depending on the activities happening there.”<\/p>\n
Sammons said jute is common in Nepal, so she incorporated plenty of jute elements in her design. Jute is a long vegetable fibre which can be spun into coarse threads.<\/p>\n
In addition to being named to the Top 5 Under 5, the winners also received an all-expenses paid trip to Toronto for the International Interior Design Exposition (IIDEX) which runs from Sept. 26 to 27.<\/p>\n
Sammons said after receiving their awards, the winners take part in a panel discussion.<\/p>\n
“The other exciting part is we get to be featured in Canadian Interiors magazine,” Sammons said. “That magazine is one of my favourite magazines so I’m really excited about that.”<\/p>
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t