海角直播

Ayse caters her designs for the future

By

With a family background in the restaurant business, artistically inclined Ayse Babur-Puplett chose to design her ideal restaurant as the final project for her BA (Hons) Interior Architecture & Design course.

Ayse, 29, from Stockton, decided to enrol on the course after spending the last ten years looking after her two children and working as a manageress in a hairdressing suppliers. Ayse said: 鈥淚 always loved learning and had done various night classes when the kids were young, ranging from subjects like art to psychology.鈥� 鈥淚鈥檝e been interested in the restaurant and catering business, because of my family background in the trade. Four years ago I had my kitchen renovated to commercial standard, which led me to become interested in interior design. I wanted to do some outside catering and found it really interesting to see what went into designing of the layout of the kitchen.

鈥淚 woke up one morning and decided I wanted to know more and return to learning, so I contacted the University about Interior Design and before I knew it, I was enrolled on the course. It took a little while to settle in, especially as I got married halfway through the first term, but I was soon feeling very confident and was really enjoying myself.鈥�

For Ayse鈥檚 final project, she created new designs for a building in Church Road in Stockton, to see how it would look as a contemporary restaurant. Ayse said: 鈥淚t was a really interesting project to tackle and I鈥檝e even shown my designs to the owners of the building. You never know, they might want to use it.

鈥淚 had a lot of support from my family and friends, and I don鈥檛 think I could have done it with out my husband, children and mum. Everyone helped me to juggle my course work and home life and it has even made us closer as a family.

鈥淒oing the course has really opened my eyes. I鈥檝e learnt so many new skills. I just can鈥檛 believe what I can do now and it鈥檚 boosted my self-esteem. I鈥檇 completely recommend it to anyone 鈥� it鈥檚 been worth every minute of the hard work.鈥�

Ayse is intending to study on the University鈥檚 New Entrepreneur Scholarship programme, in order to increase her understanding of running a business. Future plans include the possibility of combining her interior design skills and interest in catering to run her own coffee shop.

---