The Oct. 13 fires last year severely damaged the interior design department’s main class facilities and a library containing a decade’s worth of collected materials.

Immediately following the incident, interior design classes started occupying El Dorado Hall, tucked in between the Child Development Center and the Public Service buildings.

“Anytime an entire department moves quickly into a space that wasn’t designed for its needs, there will be issues,” Dean of the College of Arts and Letters Edward Inch said. “They have not had access to their design labs, materials library or gallery. Yet, in some amazing way they made it work.”

The students, faculty and staff had a difficult transition in moving from one building to another. However, it did not slow them down in terms of conducting business and classes efficiently.

A month after the move, the department was still able to earn its accreditation when the national accrediting body visited for review. Inch said many Sacramento State employees contributed to make sure the design department did not skip a beat.

“Our facilities staff and VP (vice president) Mike Lee made all the infrastructure and transitions as seamless and smooth as possible. Our college IT people worked to set up the computer systems,” Inch said. “Faculty members stayed positive and focused. (It’s) pretty remarkable.”

Nick Burnett, the former Dean of the College Arts and Letters during the time of the fires, said the biggest loss was the interior design library with a collection of materials and samples from previous projects used as illustrations.

“Of course there was some upset because Mariposa is a larger estate and was tuned to what they needed,” Burnett said. “But administration was able to provide bare minimums to get classes going.”

Burnett said insurance covered whatever was bolted to the floor. However, everything else, such as textbooks, supplies and sample interior design materials, could not be recovered.

Interior design students who have been a part of the program since the fire have also been able to adapt, but there were some inconveniences and difficulties along the way.

“It was weird because I didn’t even know that (El Dorado) Hall existed,” said Isabel Ramirez, a sophomore interior design major. “We were supplied with everything we needed, but it felt so out of place.”

Ramirez said the biggest downfall was doing homework without specific tools, such as drafting tables, or computer programs, which would have been available to them in the previous Mariposa Hall labs.

Rahmi Karajeh, a junior, declared an interior design major when the fire took place and did not have a chance to take classes in the building. However, Karajeh said he notices the difference it would have made if he were able to work in a building designed for interior design.

“As far as workable space, we definitely had enough to conduct classes,” Karajeh said. “But, as a design major, the aesthetics around you help the creative process. So being in El Dorado Hall posed a little of a challenge to become inspired.”

Karajeh said that searching for resources and utilities on campus made it difficult to complete certain projects.

“It’s a little bit of a roadblock in some aspects, but we still pulled through and did our work,” Karajeh said.

The interior design department will begin its move back to Mariposa Hall in mid-December before the spring semester begins.

Department of design chair John Forrest said the rooms will be available to interior design classes for the spring semester.

The only new addition to the original space Mariposa Hall provided for the interior design department are electrical outlets to facilitate students’ need for laptops.

Students said they look forward to moving their classes back into Mariposa Hall for the next semester.

“I was talking to a couple of my classmates about moving back in and we’re really excited,” Karajeh said. “It’ll be exciting to see how it redevelops our understanding of design and coursework for our projects.”

Both Karajeh and Ramirez did not have the opportunity to take advantage of the labs, gallery or library that were in Mariposa Hall before the fires started. Having those new resources again are what they both most look forward to.

“To be honest, I didn’t get a chance to take a major-related course there before,” Ramirez said. “So I’m really happy I finally get a chance to do so with other students and professors that have the same passion in design as I do.”

Maikalina Madali can be reached at [email protected]