NJIT Interior Design Student Haylee Merola Wins 2022 NEWH Green Voices Award
Haylee Merola, 4th year interior design student at NJIT, is the undergraduate winner of the 2022 NEWH (Network of Executive Women in Hospitality) Green Voice Design Competition. The competition “provides students with the opportunity to showcase their design skills while utilizing the very best in sustainable design products and practices.”
This year the design competition was an Adaptive Reuse Hotel Project in which students were asked to repurpose an existing building and surrounding site (either abandoned or currently in use which is not a hotel) into a hotel property. Merola’s project - The Sherburne Inn (Sherburne, NY), which she completed in her junior year under the mentorship of studio instructor Julio Figueroa, was once an inn with a restaurant. The building “had been abandoned for years before being gutted down to the structural brick masonry walls. It remains stripped down and unoccupied, but the exterior is protected as a historical site,” said Merola.
Due to the nature of the building and its historical status, there are several restrictions and preconceptions in place Merola explained. “Firstly, all currently remaining walls are multi-layer brick masonry and are load bearing. There are two existing fireplaces and a boiler room that have flues built into the wall assembly as added masonry thickness. Second, the facades facing Route 12 and Route 80 are historically protected, so they are to remain structurally unchanged. As the building stands, there are no elevators and no fire stairs up to code,” said Merola.
In Merola’s opinion the remodel of the Sherburne Inn would provide an opportunity to preserve the historic structure and character of the hotel and, in the process, renew the excitement within the community to interact and evolve as one. “Integration of the existing brick into a more modernized, refreshed style is a key element of the design, as well as upgrades influenced by the LEED system in order to bring the historical building to a new level of efficiency and sustainability,” said Merola.
On the corner of two main Sherburne streets, the inn acts as a hub of the community via public spaces such as the restaurant and bar, while maintaining the prospects of an intimate hotel on the upper levels explained Merola. “The new Sherburne Inn boosts the local economy and breathes new life into the historic town area,” Merola added.
“The Sherburne Inn, upstate New York emphasized the transformative and positive impact an adaptive reuse hotel can have in a small community. Haylee’s design addressed that impact in a very sophisticated way, in addition to all of the requirements of the competition,” said Julio Figueroa, University Lecturer at the Hillier College of Architecture and Design.
Every year Figueroa crafts a project assignment for his studio that will best address the criteria of the competition. “This is the third time that students from our Interior Design program have entered the competition. So far, they won twice in the undergraduate category. The competition objectives align very well with the pedagogical objectives of our program: Exploring adaptive-reuse strategies for hospitality and housing building typologies is critical in the 3rd year Interior Design education of our students. The opportunity the students have to couple those objectives with exploring sustainable strategies is critical in addressing the climate challenges of our time.” said Figueroa.
In addition, students were asked to incorporate in their design either LEED or WELL certification standards, innovation & emerging technology, energy-efficient technology, water-use management, selection of sustainable interior materials & furniture which support the chosen certification... and other environmental parameters set out by NEWH.
“While the competition allowed us to choose either LEED or WELL certifications, I chose to go with LEED because I have a stronger interest in the holistic approach that LEED allows and encourages. I examined materials in terms of composition and sourcing, efficiency in power and water use, and preservation of the existing site to minimize construction waste, to name a few strategies.” said Merola.
The student competitors were also required to include a story of its guest experience using storyboards, animation, annotations, rapid visualization, 2D drawings and 3D perspectives. They were asked to describe the experience “beyond what the guest can see, meaning what are the associated sensory qualities (i.e. smell, touch, sounds) that will augment your design drawings. Students will execute a dynamic, creative, cutting-edge design utilizing the products; technologies, systems, materials and construction practices that assist in meeting the deliverables as outlined.”
To watch Haylee Merola's project The Sherburne Inn, please click here.