Studio3877 Partners with Interiors & Sources for Fourth Annual I Like Design Competition

The D.C.-based firm challenges students to create the next big thing in hotel design

Design and architecture firm Studio3877 is proud to announce its partnership with Interiors & Sources magazine on the fourth annual I Like Design competition. The challenge: for architecture and design students from all over the country to break design barriers and reimagine the hotel lobby.

Co-founded by David Tracz, AIA, LEED AP BD+C and David Shove-Brown, AIA, NCARB, Studio3877 is a spirited firm with a dynamic culture, whose growing team takes on any opportunity to support the A&D community. With projects spanning the hospitality, commercial, and residential markets, Studio3877’s work can be seen throughout D.C. and across the country. From restoration projects to restaurants, hotels, and even the city’s first marijuana dispensary, Shove-Brown and Tracz along with their six team members have created spaces with context, historical references, and unique form. The firm’s hotel-inspired competition focus reflects the firm’s approach to design: study and learn the past, accept a challenge, and create something unseen and unexperienced. Above all, have a little fun.

Studio3877 is extending the challenge to students who are currently enrolled in architecture and design programs, asking them to create the next great hotel lobby concept. Participating students will reimagine all areas in the lobby—reception, restaurant, bar, and lounge. Through a detailed narrative and visual assets, students are asked to incorporate the surrounding culture and environment into their interior concept.

For the challenge, students will begin by studying the evolution of the hotel lobby, applying their knowledge and ideas to a base plan provided by Studio3877, and ultimately, creating a new, innovative design concept. “The key is to integrate the hotel visitors with one another and the community, while giving them different spaces to suit a variety of needs,” explains David Tracz and David Shove-Brown. Students are asked to submit a precedent board with an analysis and two 30-inch by 42-inch boards expressing and exploring their design concept.

The I Like Design competition is opened to any full-time student enrolled in an undergraduate or graduate program in the United States. Once finalists have been chosen, public online voting on interiorsandsources.com will eliminate one finalist each week until the final winner is announced. The finalists are encouraged to get creative and utilize social media to draw the public to vote for their designs.

The winner of this year’s I Like Design program will be featured in Interiors & Sources (both print and online), and will receive an all-expenses-paid trip to NeoCon in Chicago, North America’s largest design exposition for commercial interiors, where he or she will receive official recognition. The winner will also be awarded a paid internship with Studio3877 at the firm’s Georgetown office, as well as housing in D.C.