Another achievement was once again obtained by the Interior Design Department, School of Design Universitas Pelita Harapan (SoD UPH) through one of its students, Greta Elsa Nurtjahja (Interior Design, 2014) who became the Gold Winner of Asia Young Designer Award (AYDA) 2020. The wonderful news was announced on January 17, 2020 at Hermitage Hotel, Jakarta. Through this achievement, the Gold Winner title has been achieved by UPH Interior Design students for two consecutive years, 2018/2019 and 2019/2020.

This year’s AYDA was the seventh event held by Nippon Paint Indonesia in collaboration with the Ministry of Research, Technology, and Higher Education of Indonesia. The year’s event was followed by 486 works of students from 26 universities. The winner is chosen based on its compatibility with the event’s appointed theme: “Forward a Sustainable Future”. Through this theme, the committee aims to encourage participants upon growing their ability in answering the variety of challenges within the contemporary society in order to enhance the life quality of society and environment. Hopefully, the winner of this event can give a genuine contribution for the architecture and interior design industry of Indonesia.

According to Greta, the Gold Winner of AYDA Interior Design category, this competition is really radiates positivity and is very useful. In UPH, the faculty encourages all students, especially final year students, to join this competition. The registration process is really simple and the department is very supportive about it.

“The work that I submitted for this competition is my Final Year project with the title “Coffe House”. I think the preparation for this project has been greatly done because I also received a lot of guidance from my lecturers since my first year in the department up to my final project year. All of us are encouraged to produce our best works. Because of that, when we join a competition like this, we would only have to make minor adjustments to meet the committee’s criterias. During coaching period, the judges were praising the quality of our faculty’s works,” Greta explained.

The competition was really fun and beneficial, this could be seen from the way all participants were given direct coaching by practitioners in order for them to master various abilities so that by the end, they can design smartly and comprehensively.

“I’m really happy, grateful, and satisfied for this result. The insights given by the judges help me in perfecting my final project. After this, I will have to prepare myself even more for an Asian level competition. Especially, I have to finalize the content of my presentation, detail the application of concepts I have previously while adjusting it to the needs of a higher level competition,” said Greta whi will represent Indonesia in the Asia Young Designer of the Year on March 2020 in Vietnam.

Appreciation was also given by the Department Head of Interior Design SoD UPH, Phebe Valencia, to Greta for creating her best work which has sucessfully brought UPH Interior Design to this point.

“This achievement also proofs the quality of our learning process which results to outstanding individuals. Hopefully in the future, UPH Interior Design will always produce new works, be known as a department that gives birth to exceptional generations, and create impactful product for the society,” said Phebe.