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Interior Design Student Designs Hanging Light Fixture for UT Medical Center

The University of Tennessee Medical Center is building a new Heart Hospital in 2010 which will serve as a new entrance to the medical center's campus. Interior design student Theresa Kidwell from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, will help light that entrance. Kidwell was selected from a group of her peers to design a hanging 3-dimensional interior lighting element for the four-story atrium of the new building.

The new entrance area, fondly referred to by the building architects as an elliptunda -- or an ellipse-shaped rotunda -- was designed with a central lighting element in mind to hang from the ceiling. UT Medical Center CEO Joseph L. Landsman asked Heather King, the facility interior designer, to engage UT interior designs students to bring creative design solutions for consideration.

The students from Mary Beth Robinson and Jeff Geren's intermediate interior design course were introduced to the project the first day of classes and have worked on the project throughout much of the semester. Students were asked to design pieces that embodied the vision and values of the UT Medical Center and shown the space that lighting element would occupy.

Throughout the semester, King and other representatives from the hospital visited the studios to review progress, work with the students in developing their final design ideas and ready them for the oral and visual presentations of their designs.

Earlier this month, the 20 interior designs students presented their proposals to UT Medical Center board members, UT Interim President Jan Simek and UT Knoxville Chancellor Jimmy G. Cheek. They picked Kidwell's design.

"I really felt connected to this project and the goals and vision behind it," Kidwell said. "I knew as I worked through my design process that I was putting my best forward. It was amazing to have that be acknowledged and awarded by the people at UT Medical Center, including Heather King, the interior designer for the hospital, the CEO and board members of the hospital, to whom all thanks is given for even bringing our class in on this project and giving us this opportunity."

Kidwell will be involved in the development of the fixture as the design process progresses.

"I have met with some of the people who are working on the fabrication, and I just feel blessed to be included in the process as the development of the fixture continues," she said. "I can't wait to walk in the eliptunda and look up to see my work hanging from the ceiling, and I can't imagine how that will feel. Right now, I feel simply blessed for the opportunity that was given to me and for the talents and capabilities that God has given me."

UT Medical Center hired Barber McMurry Architects in Knoxville to design the Heart Hospital.