Helping hand from Linden Homes to interior design students

Linden Homes invited first-year students who are working towards a BA (Hons) Interior Design Decoration at Southampton Solent University to visit the show homes at its Boorley Park development in Botley, just outside the city.

The partnership between Linden Homes and Southampton Solent University is now in its fourth year, giving student invaluable on-site, first-hand experience of bringing new homes to the market. For the interior design students, it was a chance to see the living space in one of the homes as part of an assignment where they must redesign it using themes created by well-known fashion designers.

The students were welcomed by Linden Homes South marketing manager, Jo Dixon, who showed them around the home and also gave them an overview of the process behind how the Linden team chooses the interior designs based on research and insights into the anticipated purchaser profile.

She says: “It’s a real pleasure to be able to work with Southampton Solent University again and provide the students with an opportunity to see how we brief and work with our interior designers to create our beautiful show homes. Their passion and ideas are always really impressive and it’s such a difficult job to judge their projects once we get to that stage in the project. Linden Homes is committed to helping nurture new talent as who knows, one day they could end up working for us!”

The students were pleased to have the chance to have the property and learn from the housebuilder. One of them, Olivia Devereux, says: “It’s been really useful to come here today to see the space we’ve been tasked with redesigning first-hand as it brings the whole project to life. It’s also been useful to look through the design boards supplied to Linden Homes by the interior design company to get a feel for how the brief has been interpreted and presented, and to ask questions in a professional capacity.”

Lydia Southwell, course leader for BA (Hons) Interior Design Decoration at Southampton Solent University, is delighted that the partnership between the two organisations continues: “Each time we have visited a Linden Homes development our students have found it really helpful to get their creative juices flowing. It also benefits them to see the type of job they could be doing in the future, helping to put their career goals into focus.”