The Creative Suite: A Home for Creative Students

What started off as an underutilized room in the Art Building on Portland State University’s campus has transformed into a well-loved student lounge. Many art and design students at Portland State saw a need for a community lounge space in the Art Building, and I was lucky to work as part of a team through A+D Projects in the Winter 2019 term to plan, propose, and execute the creation of this community space. My team and I were able to pull from our experiences as students when choosing what needed to be prioritized; we knew things like a large guillotine cutter, staplers, and cutting mats were integral to student success, but knew that more would be needed to truly turn this into a place for students to want to meet, study, and work in. To do this we added a design library, a living room with couches and chairs, a work area with large tables and stools, a photo space to help students photograph their work, a zine library — The Pigeon Graveyard — where students are encouraged to display zines they’ve made, as well as a mural wall I designed with the support of my team.