SDSU Student Wins Prize in Interior Design Contest

Evelyne Rissolo, a San Diego State University interior design student, got a call last week from Paige Rense, editor-in-chief of Architectural Digest. Rense told Rissolo she had been selected as a winner in the magazine’s first student design competition.

Cash awards of $5,000, $3,500 and $2,500 went to the top three finishers. Six runners-up, including Rissolo, each received $1,000.

Students nationwide submitted more than 600 entries. Each developed an original interior design scheme for a seven-room apartment, and submitted 8 1/2-by-11-inch drawings of their ideas.

“Evelyne took a thematic approach,” said Stuart Flaxman, a professor of environmental and interior design at SDSU. “It was a very serene, Japanese, philosophical sort of design. She kept the environments relatively simple. In her presentation, she described each room with a haiku.”

Rissolo, a senior, was the only San Diego winner. Six of the winners are students at Kansas State University.

Entries were judged in New York City last week by Rense and a jury of six design professionals.

First-place winner Brian J. Rock’s design will be featured in the magazine’s July issue.