Laura Bielecki (me) of Luxury Interiors Blog accepting her award for Middle East Young Interior Designer of the Year 2012 on September 25th, 2012 at the Commercial Interior Design Awards

While still in shock, I am very excited to announce that at last evenings Commercial Interior Design Awards in the prestigious Emirates Towers Hotel in Dubai, I managed to snag the Middle East Young Interior Designer of the Year 2012 award. The judges attributed their decision to my social media involvement in the industry, attention to environmental responsibility and design style.

Laura Bielecki Senior Interior Designer at Godwin Austen Johnson Architects Dubai (from my photoshoot with Commercial Interior Design magazine)

As a great portion of this award has to do with my blog, Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook etc. pages I would like to thank every single person who follows the notes, inspiration and images that I share and for keeping me excited and eager to share more. To all the teachers, bosses and colleagues I have met over the years who are full of passion and love for what they do, thank you for inspiring me. To my family and friends for giving me the courage to keep going and understanding the struggles I go through to occasionally walk down a different path, thank you for believing in me no matter what.  And most of all thank you to GAJ for bringing me to Dubai less than 1 year ago, introducing me to some very inspiring and knowledgeable colleagues and giving me opportunities in new directions of learning. Thank you GAJ for nominating me for this award, your support is truly appreciated.

October 2012: CID magazine published the below article about my win. You can also view the entire article online here.

For more knowledge and up to date info on the Middle East and North Africa design and Architecture industry from Commercial Interior Design magazine and ITP check out the Design Mena website.

On October 30th, 2012 at 6p ET, 5p CT, 3p PT,  11p GMT I had the honor of Hosting the very popular #IntDesignerChat tweetchat to share my experiences in Dubai and promote working abroad and taking chances! Read the full discussion here.

Mount Royal University (where I graduated in 2006) did an interview and write-up on my award on their Facetime page. In addition during my 1 month victory tour of Canada (it was really just a beautiful holiday visiting family) I did a presentation to the students and shared my journey from graduating 6 years ago to the gold and glamour of design in the Emirates. I left an inspirational message on the graffiti stair in studio for the students as well. I have a surprise in store for the student(s) who tweets/emails me a photo of it with them first! – just to check who is doing their homework…

In November Commercial Interior Design magazine published a great article about my win, how much I love my career and a few of the wonderful projects I have worked on over the past 6 years. See below for the full article and here for the full November issue.

Thanks again to everyone who has been so supportive through my career. Keep inspiring!

To all my readers…. I promise I will start blogging about design again shortly rather than media coverage of me tickled pink!

~ Laura of Arabia ~