Royalty descended upon Iowa State in the form of kings, queens, rooks, knights and pawns this week in the Atrium of the College of Design.

Students in interior design learned the art of chess as they built and designed their own large-scale chess sets as part of a class taught by Cigdem Akkurt, associate professor of art and design.

“When I was in Rome with interior design students we went on field trips, and I saw people playing chess like this on piazzas and in Amsterdam,” Akkurt said.

The objective of the chess-set project was to take a period or style and design it in a non-literal way similar to the way Ancient Greeks designed their pillars and towers, Akkurt said. The projects were on display Wednesday, and the students played a chess tournament with their gigantic boards.

Akkurt said students were asked to use Green Design, a recyclable and ecological design, with recyclable materials to keep cost down.

The project was for second-year students in their first semester of the interior-design program. The class is the first studio students take once admitted into the program, Akkurt said. She said it is the second year the chess tournaments have taken place in the Design Atrium.

Students were divided into groups of four or five people and had to design one period, choosing from gothic, mission, high-tech, ancient Greece, ancient Egypt, Memphis and art deco.

“There are two teams on each board, four boards all together, and the teams had to work to build the board together,” Akkurt said. “Teams were spread out all over town to build, and . they all moved in and set up.”

Akkurt said one of the objectives of the project is to be able to play with pieces designed by different groups, to play accordingly and wisely and to change roles.

Sara McSweeney, sophomore in interior design, said the construction of the boards took much planning.

“They broke us into groups and gave us different eras, and we had to go and research eras and write a paper about it,” she said. “Then we came up with different forms, symbols, colors and a hierarchy – how we would use those in the hierarchy of chess. We worked a lot on process and coming up with different designs, like using specific colors for specific reasons.”

Jen Fouts, junior in art and design, said the project required a lot of team work.

“It was challenging, stressful and frustrating taking everyone’s ideas and putting them together,” she said.

The chess games are divided into three rounds with everyone first playing with the chess set they designed, then moving around to each different chess board for the opportunity to play with each set.

“There are three timed rounds,” Akkurt said. “When the time is up, whoever has the most pieces wins.”

Members of the Ames Chess Club also participated in the project.

“We had to learn to play chess,” McSweeney said. “Members of the chess team came in and taught us how to play.”