Design Star 5: Studio Apartment Design

The Challenge

This week’s challenge was all about color. Each contestant was randomly assigned a color which then would become their theme for decorating a studio apartment. Host Clive Pearse told the designers it would be up to them how literally they took the color theme - would they use the color throughout their design, or only incorporate splashes?

The color assignments worked out as follows:

• Alice - Blue
• Temple - Yellow
• Tym - Green
• David - Red

The budget for the project was $2,000, and the designers would have 24 hours over two days to complete their work. As a bonus this week, each designer had their own carpenter to help with the tasks.

The Work

The contestants all decided to interpret their color assignments very literally - Alice, Temple, and Tym painted all their walls in shades of their colors, while David painted part of his walls in red.

Alice called her blue “Tiffany box blue” and aimed to make her space feel calm and relaxing. Tym focused on “bringing the outdoors inside” with his two shades of green. Temple’s room didn’t have much of a theme - rather, she simply painted the walls yellow and accessorized the room. David’s design was the most risky. He built a short “wall” to create a living room space. He brought red into the room by painting some of the walls, accessorizing in red, and decorating with his own red and pink paintings.

Clive Pearse visited the contestants on day two of the challenge to drop a bombshell - after finishing their rooms, they would be required to “present” the rooms “TV presenter style” to the judges.

The Results

The judging was difficult this week, as all of the designers did strong work. Some complaints were raised about taking the task too literally - the judges felt simply painting the walls in their assigned colors showed a lack of creativity. Temple’s room was judged to lack personality, and Tym’s room was considered a little cold - Vern Yip called it a “nice dorm room or prison room.”

Despite the criticisms, however, the designing was relatively equal. That meant much more was riding on the presentations by the designers. Alice was everyone’s favorite presenter - they thought she was natural, relaxed, and “cute.” Tym was a close second. Cynthia Rowley in particular found him to be confident and “macho.” David was a little bit nervous, and a little bit rushed with his presentation. The judges were split on Temple - Vern Yip said he felt she was “acting,” while Cynthia Rowley - clearly Temple’s biggest supporter - thought she was a natural.

In the end, Rowley’s support of Temple wasn’t enough to carry her through this week, and the amateur designer, who had beaten out so many others with so much more experience, saw her show be cancelled.