An interior design major will attend a hospitality design exposition in May after winning a sustainable design competition for her Denmark-inspired lifestyle hotel project last March.

Junior Keyaira Mumford said she received a $7,500 scholarship award and a paid trip to Las Vegas, Nevada to share her sustainable design hotel at an exposition in May.

Mumford said when students submitted their designs, the requirements were to adapt a building that uses sustainable building standards.

“They put up the guidelines online and you could pick a historic building anywhere in the world,” Mumford said.

She said the Gastown Historic District in Vancouver, British Columbia, influenced the design and atmosphere for her hotel design.

Mumford said her hotel is named “Hygge,” which means comfort and communality in Danish. She said it was inspired by Denmark’s winter lifestyle.

She said the idea was to create a “home away from home” environment, and she wanted her hotel to target a certain lifestyle.

Mumford said the competition allowed students to use multiple sustainable standards for building codes. She chose the Leadership, Energy and Efficient Design (LEED) building code.

She said she focused on four sustainability features for the hotel: atmosphere, indoor air quality, water efficiency and transportation.  

She said she envisions the main lobby to have background music, laughter and crackling fire when patrons walk in. The lobby would also include a bookstore, cafe and gym. There would be a fireplace and waterfall on opposite ends near the furniture area.

“The philosophy of the hotel is to create an atmosphere of comfort, togetherness, coziness and well-being,” Mumford said.

She said the interior of the hotel will have warm colors, rounded corners and energy-efficient LED lighting.

There would be little to no volatile organic compounds (VOCs), odor from wall paints, so patrons can enjoy air quality in the hotel, Mumford said.

The hotel would also include low-flow fixtures so customers can use less water, she said.

Mumford said the hotel would provide bikes for customers to travel to community events, sites or restaurants.

The bikes are a sustainable alternative to reduce the carbon dioxide in the air, she said.

Mumford said she wanted to focus on interior design to promote more sustainability-driven options for people.

“I thought the concept was really interesting to build a building using no energy and that actually gives back to the environment,” she said. “That is what initially got me excited about interior design.”